Distraction Displays: Mass Breeding Bird Atlas 2

BBA2 Newsletter: Heatwave Edition

"Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get." Mark Twain

Download BBA2 Newsletter July 22 2011

 

 

 

Photo from the cool Dale Chihuly exhibit at the Boston MFA, where it is suitabley air conditioned.

Act Naturally

 
I guess that would be "From the Department of Buck Owens and the Buckaroos." While out doing some walking independent of the Atlas - I had an excuse, a meeting away from my block - I found this Osprey nest on a tree in Mass Audubon's Waseeka Wildlife Sanctuary in Hopkinton.

 
In other osprey news, as Walter Cronkite might say if he was an ornithologist, osprey banding on the South Shore, done completely from manmade nests, went exceedingly well, 26 chicks banded from Quincy to Plymouth. Quick math: First Atlas, 24 osprey entries from Possible to Confirmed, in all of Massachusetts; Second Atlas, 27 confirmed nests from Quincy to Plymouth.

 
Ospreys are back, baby!

Newsletter To Cape Cod Atlasers from Mary Keleher

From The Department of Really Swell Terminal Moraines

Hi All,

Just wanted to remind everyone that there's still about one month left of atlasing for the 5th and final year of the state's 2nd Breeding Bird Atlas!

Some species Safe Dates have ended but there are still many species whose Safe Dates do not end until mid-August. So keep on looking for breeding birds.

 

Three more species were confirmed today. While I was in the Falmouth 01 block early this morning I spotted fledgling House Wrens & Field Sparrows. I used my favorite tool, www.massaudubon.org/blockfinder, to see if these species had been recorded in the block yet. They were listed only as Probable so I entered them in as an Incidental sighting to Confirm them for the block.

And later in the morning I was in the Hyannis 06 block with Keelin Miller. We watched a Willow Flycatcher perch along the edge of a marsh area, catch an insect & fly off into the thicket across the road from us. This was repeated about a dozen or so times making it obvious to us that the bird was carrying food (CF) to a nearby nest. This was the first comfirmation for this species for Barnstable County for this atlas period. Thanks to Keelin for spotting this bird yesterday! Here are a few photos of the bird, a couple of them showing the bird with a big dragonfly! http://www.flickr.com/photos/34356219@N07/sets/72157627216263666/

 

Late last week I was in the North Truro 06 block at a marsh that looked like it might be a good place for rails. I played a Virginia Rail recording and in within seconds 2 of them came running to the edge of the reeds. One of them came out and circled around me. I used the blockfinder tool and saw that this species had not yet been recorded for this block. I entered it as Probable with the T code.

 

Many of you have completed blocks to the percentage requirements for the atlas (close to 20 Primary Hours of atlasing, about 60 species per block, and 70% of those species being Probable/Confirmed.

There are still several of you that asked to be assigned to blocks this year. Many of you have opened cards and have been entering in data. For those of you that have NOT opened your cards please do so and enter in your data.

If you are assigned to a block this year and you did not have a chance to do any atlasing please let me know so I can mark the block with "No Visits" for the year.

Thank You!

Mary

Kestrel Staredown

Walkin' the Walk

By Mark Thorne, more below

Please Enter Data Now

"The suspense is killing me - I hope it never ends." Oscar Wilde

Right now we have 309 field cards open for our 5th and final year of the Mass Breeding Bird Atlas 2.

That is an incredible push for the last year, and I really want to thank all of you for such a strong finish.

This is a photo of my desk. Ugh. Actually, it is my second desk, the first one is too full of paper to put these papers on it! I have a full day ahead of me to enter and check all my data (checking because I tend to click on Piping Plover not Killdeer on the field cards - the coordinators generally call me and gently tell me that I am a pain).

Please enter all your data as soon as you collect it. Remember to submit maps of all the T&E species through the My Contributions part of the USGS site.

Thanks for all the work - the end is near.

 

Tuesday Tune-Up #8: The Carpodacus Finches

Every rosefinch has its song.

The genus Carpodacus, somtimes referred to as rosefinches, presenta an interesting complex for the the Massachusetts Atlaser.  House Finch is a rapidly-increasing introduced species, while Purple Finch is a native bird that seems to be in real trouble.  Telling these birds apart is therefore crucial to our data, especially as it may be used to make important management decisions about Massachusetts birdlife.  A brief glimpse of a red-faced finch can be inconclusive, so train your ear to differentiate between these two species' similar (but not identical) songs.

Saltmarsh Sparrow: Needles in Salt Hay Stacks

From The Department of Negative Data

 

Yesterday I went out looking for Saltmarsh Sparrow in four blocks near Marion - they'd been reported from the surrounding blocks, and it seemed they may have been missed in these few blocks. I had to go to the area to give a talk at 1PM in New Bedford, so I figured, why no? I am bound to find some, right?

 Wrong! Not a one. The access was dismal on foot or from a car - a Whaler or kayak would have helped - the tide was outgoing to full slack low, and not a Saltmarsh Sparrow was found.

 

This begs an interesting question - is the gap in the distribution of Saltmarsh Sparrow along the coast of Plymouth County that the Atlas 2 shows real? I emailed John Galluzzo from the field and his feeling was that the Plymouth coast, up near Duxbury in particular, was very well covered, and the gap may well be real.

If anyone wants to try to find some Saltmarsh sparrows from the blocks with marsh it would be a noble effort. Access may be better in Plymouth - and if you have a kayack it will increase your chances by a lot. The blocks where it looks like we should have hits (from the luxury of Google Earth) are: Plymouth 01, Duxbury 01, 03, 04, 05, 06, Scituate 02, 03, and Hull 12.

The Buzzards Bay blocks were Marion 04, 05, Onset 01, 04 and Sagamore 04.

Looking for more Tune-Up ideas!

From the Department of Power to the People

Have you been waiting for a particular challenge to be addressed as a Tuesday Tune-Up?  Let your voice be heard!  Submit suggestions in the comments.  Whether it's an entire group of birds that give you trouble or just two species that you would like to brush up on, we want to know about it.  Comment with requests and suggestions, so the next Tuesday Tune-Up can be exactly what you were looking (or listening!) for.

Note: Please Do Not Enter Atlas Data on eBird Unless You Also Enter It on Our USGS Portal

Red Alert!

Quick Note: Please do not enter you atlas data only on eBird.

eBird is great, but this is our last year of data collection, we do not know how we will harvest the eBird data, it is not harvestable in "real time" like the USGS data is, and with just a few critical weeks to go in our 5 year long project we really can't accommodate a new data server and source.

We will get into eBird at the end of the project and see what we can get out, and the river can the other way at a later date, but right now we need all data entered into the good ole' USGS site like you have been doing for 5 years.

Please pass this on to other volunteers.

Tuesday Tune-Up #7: The Empidonax Flycatchers

A closed mouth catches no flies.

Every birder knows the Empidonax flycatchers are notoriously difficult to identify.  Visually, there are differences, but tricks of the light and individual variation usually overshadow these to the point where they are rarely reliable in the field.  Habitat is a more useful method for separating these species, but two (Alder and Willow) can be found nesting almost side-by-side, with Acadian Flycatchers not far away.  Voice is the best way to tell these birds apart.  Their songs are easy to distinguish from one another, but (for me at least) the difficult part is remembering which song goes with which Empid.  That will be the subject of this week's Tuesday Tune-Up.