The dust has settled, the polls have closed and the results are in. We have a winner in the ages-old debate of who owned the better land, based on twenty-first century bird observations, Myles Standish or John Alden.
If we were to take straight species sighting totals after 20 hours of these neighboring coastal blocks, the winner is the Standishes. They harbored 67 documentable species during the atlas period, whereas the Aldens, in Duxbury 5, had 57.
If we were to go simply by confirmations (a tenuous jump as best, as this may just prove the lack of skills of the primary atlaser - me - although I did handle both blocks!), the winner, again, is Standish, 32-26.
If we were to compare the new atlas to the old one, we would find that the Aldens came close to a 100% match up: 58 species in the 1970s, 57 today. The Standishes, on the other hand, went over the top, 67 to 58. Once again, they take the category.
In reality, the comparison shows some obvious, blatant, disturbing trends. In Duxbury 5, there was an even swap of 19 species; 19 seen in the first atlas and not in the second, and vice versa. That means that only 39 species carried over from the 1970s until today. In Duxbury 6, the numbers were 18, 27 and 39. The species diversity has changed by about 33% in each block.
What's down in both blocks? Black duck, bobwhite, woodcock and wood thrush. What's new in both areas? Canada goose, swan, turkey, double-crested cormorant, great blue heron, osprey, Cooper's hawk, red-bellied woodpecker, fish crow, Carolina wren and pine warbler. There's so much to read into the data.
And so, it can now be definitively stated that the better Pilgrim, when it came to future real estate projections 400 years ago, was the winner, and new champion, Myles Standish! It's not surprising, really, as his statue looks like he's waiting for his falcon to come back. (Note: no falcons were sighted in either block during the compilation of this data.)