If the challenge is to count birds,
and if a bird's song is positively identified by more than one person,
why does the bird not count towards Chili Challenge?
Debra grows art
Art raises questions
The moon rises over
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-----Original Message-----
From: MU Ornithology Listserv (ZOO 408)
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of Ned Keller
Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2007 10:45 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Chili Challenge Thoughts
Congratulations to Dave and Jill for their
great showing in the Chili
Challenge. We gave them a good run, but it
wasn't quite enough. To all
those who wanted to see someone else win,
I can only say: Maybe next year.
My main reason for doing the Challenge was
to give myself some
motivation to get out birding more often.
It certainly worked – I got
out much more than in the past few years.
This was my first year doing
the Challenge, and I guess my biggest
surprise, although that’s probably
not the right term, was remembering how
hard it can be to actually see
many of the passerines. Aves confuseus had
eight species that we
couldn’t count because they were heard
only – Black-billed Cuckoo,
Winter Wren, Veery, Northern Waterthrush,
Hooded Warbler, Wilson’s
Warbler, Grasshopper Sparrow, and
Henslow’s Sparrow.
It seemed that there were quite a lot of
rare species seen this year.
But maybe that’s just because I was paying
more attention. My perception
has been that I expect the rarities to
show up far more often in fall –
frequently first-year birds wandering off
course. At any rate, four new
species in one year strikes me as quite
good. Was it only four - since
we have only a handful of documented
spring records, has Baird’s
Sandpiper been recorded before?
At any rate, with spring migration winding
down – although it’s not over
just yet – it’s time to start thinking
about breeding bird atlases. Both
Indiana and Ohio are in the middle of
their second atlas projects. I’m
the regional coordinator for this part of
Ohio, so if you have any
interest in participating, please contact me.
--
--
Ned Keller
[log in to unmask]
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