A "snow day" has given me the opportunity to rejig my blog a little and to look into E-Bird. I added their gadget to the top of my blog as a way of monitoring posts made about birds on the Avalon. It seems not too many people are using the system, but I can really see the benefits of it if everyone were posting their sightings. Imagine if all backyard birders would post their feathered visitors on the site.
It seems very easy to use, but for me, I think I will just start now. It would be too much work for me to go back in time and try to enter all of my birds seen to date. I haven't made any entries yet so I'm not sure how much work is involved. My first steps were to read about the tool and sign up.
My next steps are to find some good birds and attempt to enter the data into the program. I will report on that experience once I have been though it.
It is hard to imagine that we are so close to the arrival of Daylight Savings Time. That means that the evenings will be longer and the opportunity to get out and try to see some birds is just around the corner. I wonder if anything interesting has blown in on the wind...
"Snow Day" backyard activity: Typically, on snowy days, my feeders are very busy but I guess the wind is just too high today. Of course, most of the feeders are blown empty or covered in snow. Once things calm down a bit, I will take care of that and hope some finches find their way in.
Yesterday, I saw a flock of Pine Siskins in the treetops near my home. That is the first time since last year. Perhaps activity at my feeder will improve.
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I'm happy you're giving eBird a try.
ReplyDeleteIt's a very popular program in the rest of North America. Eastern Canada, for whatever reason, hasn't really caught on, which is unfortunate. But I think that is changing :)
At first it can take some time to submit each checklist but don't worry. With some time it will become more efficient. I can submit 3 checklists in under 5 minutes for my usual locations :)
If you had submitted all your 199 species to NL last year you would have been the top birder for the province:
http://ebird.org/ebird/canada/top100?locInfo.regionCode=CA-NL&year=2011&locInfo.regionType=subnational1
If you have any questions about the program feel free to ask me :)
I volunteer for the program for Ontario, Denmark, Sweden and Singapore so I've become very familiar with it.
Beware though, it becomes addictive!
alvanbuckley@gmail.com
Thanks, Alvan. I may well ask for help. You seem to be having an amazing birding experience there. I am following your exploits closely. Keep them coming.
ReplyDeleteYou may be interested in listening to this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cbc.ca/video/news/audioplayer.html?clipid=2207085163