Ask us about birding! [not the pet birds thread]

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Pet Island > Ask us about birding! [not the pet birds thread]

Counteresperanto: Jun 15, 2007; Achievement is its' own reward. Pride obscures it.

BetterLekNextTime posted:

I've noticed a big dip in American Goldfinches at my house. Used to be more common than the Lesser Goldfinches but now it's pretty unusual for me to see one. Now there's salmonella that's hitting the irruptive siskin population . I'm not feeding this year but if I were I'd take down my feeders.

In happier news, this is a heads up for the Great Backyard Bird Count coming next weekend (Feb 12-15). It's an easy citizen science project to get involved with to help monitor late winter bird populations. Does not have to be literally in your backyard, just wherever you have a few minutes to look for birds.

Do regular eBird checklists count towards the Backyard Bird Count? What about events like Big Days, Christmas Bird Count, Feederwatch or others? It seems to me that ordinary checklists count towards some special counts but not others, and I can ever seem to keep it straight.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2021 20:04

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 13:29

Counteresperanto: Jun 15, 2007; Achievement is its' own reward. Pride obscures it.

BetterLekNextTime posted:

As far as I know any complete Ebird checklist of at least 15 minutes in length made during the GBBC period will be automatically included in the GBBC dataset. You don't need to do anything special to become included.

All ebird checklists have the potential to be used in any research using eBird data, although it's more likely if it's a complete checklist with all numerical counts for the species.

The Christmas Bird Count predates eBird and GBBC by many decades, so it's kind of a separate thing, although more and more people are using eBird mobile as a data collection and compiling tool to record CBC data. So I guess potentially the same ebird checklist could become part of the eBird dataset and be folded into a CBC count circle. But if you're just birding outside a circle, or even inside a circle but not coordinating with the CBC compiler, then your ebird list does not count towards the CBC. CBC circles have set routines that they follow to try to ensure people are spread out and covering different areas, so they don't have to figure out of the 8 checklists from a park or hotspot that day how many total birds were there.

Great Backyard Bird Count is an independent winter bird-finding event that can be done anywhere, not just in the predetermined count circles. It's more or less just trying to synchronize as many people to count on the same weekend. Global big day is another one of these, and there are plenty of other more local/regional ones too. Basically "wahoo, let's go birding y'all"

If you're already entering eBird lists then you're way ahead of the game.

Thanks for this, glad to be contributing, even in this small way. The weather kept me indoors for most of the weekend. So, besides reports on my yard and feeders, I only made it out once to a local pond, where there is dependably a nice variety of ducks.

Each winter, for at least the past three winters, a pair of Northern Pintails has taken up residence in this pond. It's always only one pair, so I assume they are the same pair each year. The male is very handsome and elegant, but quite timid. He always heads back out onto the water when people are about. The female, on the other hand, is more likely to be found at the leading edge of the mallard stampede that descends on any human visitor.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2021 19:01

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Pet Island > Ask us about birding! [not the pet birds thread]