Hello Cayuga birders, I’m writing to invite you all to participate in a new eBird project taking place in Tompkins and Cortland Counties – Avicaching!
A take on Geocaching, where people go to specific GPS coordinates to find hidden items, this is the eBird version: going to specific GPS coordinates and recording the birds that you see and hear there. With the birds pouring back into our area for spring, we hope that you’ll go birding, submit your observations to eBird, and maybe win free Zeiss binoculars! All you need is an eBird account and a yearning to go birding. The purpose of this project is to gather data in these two counties that currently have few eBird submissions, allowing us to improve our analyses of data in this area. If the motivation to help improve the quality of the citizen science data in eBird isn’t enough to motivate you to Avicache, we are also offering a prize for participating! Every person who submits at least one eligible eBird checklist from an Avicache location will be entered in a drawing for a brand new pair of Zeiss binoculars. The more that you participate, the higher the chances of winning the binoculars! The first day of the project is this coming Friday, 27 March, continuing until the last Thursday in May – the 31st. Each Friday-Thursday week will be a discrete scoring period, so the games begin this Friday! There are 50 locations across Tompkins and Cortland Counties that are a part of this project, and during the 9 weeks of this project, eBirding done at these Avicaches will award you points that contribute to your Avicaching score. Learn more about the locations, scoring, and the entire project on the official site: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/avicaching/. There are details about the objectives and how you can participate, a map with all of the locations, and much more! Please don’t hesitate to send any questions that you might have my way, and I hope to see you out in the field! Best, Ian -- Ian Davies eBird Project Assistant Cornell Lab of Ornithology http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
