Distraction Displays: Mass Breeding Bird Atlas 2

Atlas Moves!

Off to greener pastures...

Exciting news!

Distraction Displays is moving from TypePad over to WordPress.  Be sure to change the URL in your Favorites bar, Bookmarks menu, or that little word processor file that you use to keep track of all your favorite sites.  The new home of the Atlas Blog can be found at www.massaudubon.org/blogs/massbirdatlas

We'll be posting new material in the coming weeks, including some data summaries, new maps, and previews for the final species accounts.  All the more reason to make sure you have the new site bookmarked.

 

 

Photo credit: Bonnie Buxton

Hummingbird Flash-Map Project: Update

Flash Mobs are soooo 5 minutes ago....

(Update: we have gotten 250 hummingbird locations in 5 days using the mapping tool. Very cool. Add yours to the pile if you have a minute - see below.)

Great photo, aye? Phil Brown sent it in.

Here at Atlas Central we are trying something new.  We are taking advantage of the talent in the MAS IT Dept, and in our Online Media Group and creating a new Flash Mapping tool for hummingbirds.

We are asking MAS friends and visitors to the website if they will map their hummingbirds over the next few weeks, and we'll use those Google maps to fill in gaps in the BBA2 data.

Hummers are easy for atlasers to miss, unless you are either lucky, charmed, or stare at people's houses. Luckily, there are thousands of homes out there with feeders that get visited every day, and those folks can put a pin on a map for us and tell us a little about their hummingbirds (similar to our owl reporter tool that got 600 owl reports!). We only have one kind of hummingbird, so ID is not a problem.

We rolled out the project this morning on Facebook and on the MAS homepage, and we already have 25 reports.

If you have a feeder at home that is visited, or see a hummingbird over the next few weeks, please take the time to put a pin on the online map as well as entering it on your Atlas card.

The mapping tool is at http://www.massaudubon.org/hummingbirds/index.php

Photo by Phil Brown, who donated a slew of beautiful hummingbird photos and a video. Thanks Phil.

To read about Flash Mobs (as opposed to our Flash Map) go to Wiki.

 

If It Was My Home - Visualizing the BP Oil Spill

  From The Department of Relativity and Bummers

Actually, we really don't love that dirty water.

Here is a handy tool for showing the surface size of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster on a Google Map, then moving the spill anywhere you want to. 

If It Was My Home - Visualizing the BP Oil Spill.

We all know that the places we know best are the ones where we can visualize scale - on this map I centered the spill on Worcester - but you can move it anyplace you want to.

 

USGS Website Down

"But Captain, I can't change the laws of physics!" Scotty

UPDATE: Their public server is toasted, and their IT folk are working on a repair or (yikes) replacement. This could take a while.

The USGS data entry website is down. I am not sure when it will be back because it looks like their email may be down too.

This makes the third large outage I have heard of today (the Mass Audubon internet is pretty spotty, and a video conference in DC that I am on the list for can't get their internet in the game either), so just be patient, try the site again every few hours, and it will come back. 

There is no need to email when you find an outage on their end. If you can reach other websites on your computer, but the USGS won't come up, then the problem is on their end. Sometimes it is maintenance, sometimes hardware, sometimes Romulans - but it always will come back.

Dendroica: Environment Canada's Bird ID Training Website

The Chair Recognizes Our Neighbors to the North

We want to encourage those of you who feel your bird image and song ID could be improved to use the new website that Environment Canada, USGS, Partner's in Flight and a few other partners have created. It is called Dendroica (rolls right off the tongue, if you speak warbler, really) and will honestly help you learn and improve your bird ID skills.

It takes a few minutes, and a pair of return emails, to register, but once you are registered you are off to the races. Did I mention it is free?

You can your set of lists to display a list that is Massachusetts birds, excluding Rare and non-breeding, and the list that you are trained on and are quizzed with. The list that is auto-generated is really close to the actual list of breeding birds in Massachusetts - there are a few add-ons, but they are sort of fun. You can also create a custom list (do I really have to learn all the vireos every year? it appears so!) and Dendroica includes all the species in North America, so it'll be great for traveling or other surveys. 

Below the fold is the email announcing the program, and I will follow up with some specific tweaks that seem to work for me. You should be able to figure it out with a little button pushing and exploration though.

One bit of bad news - the audio requires Flash, which is no problem for Mac or PC desktops/laptops, and some Smaty-pants-phones. For us iPhone-iTouch-iPad folks though, the audio doesn't work (damn you Steve Jobs!). For us iPhone folk there is the iBird app and the Sibley app - but that is for another post.

(Kudos to me for getting through the whole post without a single "aye" joke, a curling joke, or a picture of a Mountie.)

New Search Tool On Blog

From the Department of Ooohs and  Aaahs

OK, this is way more gooder than sliced bread.

We now have a Google search tool (top right of the blog, right there, yup, that's it) that will, well, I bet you know what it does. Type in a word or phrase and it will find the posts where the word or phrase appears.

So now if you want to read any of the interim results posts, or one of our more pithy Commander's Palace posts, or a Makin' Sausage post, just type in the name of the species, or phrase and, viola, up comes the posts.

(Flicker Photo by Marj Rines, 2009)

 

Quick Start Directions for 2010 Atlasing

Yippie!

The handbook is long, and for many people, time is short. Below is a set of "Quick Start" directions taken from the handbook, designed to refresh your memory or at least to streamline the process of getting out of the gate this year.

 

 

 

FREQUENTLY USED EMAIL ADDRESSES, WEBSITES AND BLOGS

• Our email address is birdatlas@massaudubon.org
• Our blog address is massaudubonblogs.typepad.com/massbirdatlas/. We update this page almost daily.
• The USGS data entry page is
  www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bba/index.cfm?fa=explore.ProjectHome&BBA_ID=MA2007
• The BBA 2 homepage is massaudubon.org/birdatlas/bba2/methods/ This page hosts archived forms, directions, and links. It does not change often.

NEW VOLUNTEERS

• Sign up to volunteer at:www.massaudubon.org/birdatlas/bba2/how_to_help.php
• Your Regional Coordinator will contact you, assign you to a block, and give you a data entry Observer Code. If you lose that code just email us and we will send it to you.

OLD TIMERS & NEWBIES

• Your Regional Coordinator will assign you to blocks.
• You’ll find those assignments on your USGS data entry home page – My Atlas View – after you log in.

• Get a copy of the Block Map at the same place you data entry site.
• Download checklists and breeding codes at the BBA 2 home page or the blog.

PLANNING YOUR ATLAS TRIPS

• Find out what has been seen in the block during both Atlas 1 and Atlas 2 by logging into the USGS data entry site, and selecting Block Results Detail from the left hand menu.
• Study the block map and the results page to plan a strategy for visiting all habitats in the block in 20 hours. Don’t trespass.
• The 20-hour Goal? – Maximize the number of breeding species during safe dates.
• The 20+-hour Goal? – Maximize the number of Confirmed Breeding species.

IN THE FIELD

• Go birding in the block. Study songs of species you don’t know well.
• Keep track of the time of the visits, and record the species found on your field card.
• Enter your data into the USGS data entry site after each field trip. PLEASE.
• Stay safe. Follow driving, boating, and biking laws, let people know where you are going, and carry a charged cell phone.
• Switch cards from a Primary to a Supporting card after 20 hours of atlasing in a block.

ENTERING DATA

• The USGS data entry page is
• www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bba/index.cfm?fa=explore.ProjectHome&BBA_ID=MA2007
• Explore that site. It has lots of data summaries, results maps, and information. Click away! Pay attention to the options that become available on the left hand menu.
• Enter maps of the location of all State Listed species using the online tool at USGS under the heading “My Contributions”.
• After your last field trip and data entry, hit the Finalize button at the end of the data entry checklist so we know you are done.
• Mail checklists to:

Mass Audubon

Breeding Bird Atlas 2

208 South Great Road

Lincoln, MA 01773

Molly the Barn Owl (in California)

From the Department of Voyeurs

 
Some nice folks in San Marcos California put up a Barn Owl box a few years ago, and this year a pair of owls moved in. They names the owls Moll and McGee

Since they launched their live owl cam in Feb. 2010 it has gone viral, and more than 3.3 million views have been had. The comments pour by faster than sap running in March.

3.3 million views.

They narrate events in the box - like eggs hatching, and do live Q&As for classes while kindergartners view the box. Its pretty cool, and the bird is gorgeous. The comments are a bit on the anthropomorphic side, touchy feelie etc, but what a way to connect people to nature! 

Kestrel, Gos and Peregrine Missing from Atlas Lists

 From The Department of Cloaking Device Development

Alert Atlasers have commented that when they are looking at the results from their blocks from previous years (using the handy Block Results Detail button on the left-hand menu at the USGS site, and remembering to click on the box that says Show All Atlas Species) they are noticing that some species are missing.

We exclude from public view all records of kestrels, goshawks and peregrines. You can see them if you log in to the site, and look at your My Contributions details.

Excruciating details for doing this are below the fold - but you "above-the-fold-folk" will want to know why. Kestrel and Gos can be taken for falconry with appropriate permits. Some nefarious people rob nests, taking all birds. Atlas maps would seem to create a road map to birds for the bad guys - so we cloak the records.

Olive-sided Flycatcher Update

Now, With Bonus Info

"On Saturday (June 20), as I posted to Massbird, my wife and I watched an Olive-sided Warbler singing vigorously in the Chester-Blandford State Forest, in Blandford.  This was in the exact same spot where we found the bird singing, in excellent habitat, the previous Saturday (June 13).  That counts as a Probable, doesn't it?  I haven't entered the data online yet, but will do so tomorrow.

John Weeks"

Yes, it is Probable. We'd checked Massbird last week, but didn't get back to it on Monday. Sorry.

As an aside, it is really difficult for us at the BBA 2 to pull info off the listserves (we are already dealing with 60 emails a day, and trying to stay at least in sight of our incredible 400 volunteers). If anyone has any suggestions, or wants to act as our eyes for the listserves, ferreting out exciting breeding bird info, we'd appreciate it.

Image from Wikipedia: Birds of New York (New York State Museum. Memoir 12), Albany: University of the State of New York. Plates by Fuertes later reproduced in Birds of America (1917) by Thomas Gilbert Pearson (1873-1943) et al.