Maine Bird Atlas - Weekly Challenges, 5/8
32 views
Skip to first unread message
Doug Hitchcox
May 8, 2020, 4:11:45 PM5/8/20
to Bird Alerts
Hi everyone:
Last week's results: Fantastic effort with 117 records submitted for last week’s challenges! Reminder to double-check which portal you submit to (24% of those were not in the Maine Bird Atlas). Only 2 of the 23 confirmed titmouse reports were in new blocks but 10 new blocks had probable records, so keep working on those. Looots of coded Pileated Woodpeckers, and a couple new blocks with Louisiana Waterthrush records, nicely done! Congrats to Michael from Bar Harbor, Matthew reporting in South Portland, and Emma from Brunswick for being chosen by excel’s random number generator as winners this week!
Here are the challenges for this week:
1) American Robin - this species has a ton of records (check out this map: https://ebird.org/atlasme/map/amerob) but fewer confirmed than I’d expect given how conspicuous they tend to be. Find a nesting bird before the leafs come out!
2) Yellow-rumped Warbler - the challenge here is to follow the safe dates. Until June 1st, no possible (S, H) or lower probable (P, M, S7) codes should be used. There were a lot of singing warblers reported this week but we don’t want to accidentally code migrants, so avoid those codes until the safe dates. Higher codes do supersede safe dates. Any non-coded (or correctly coded) Yellow-rumps reported on a qualifying checklist will put you in the running.
3) Merlin - perhaps one of the more interesting changes from the first atlas (1978-83) is the increase in Merlins nesting across the state. We are now within safe dates for this species so track down some possible sites to monitor through the summer. Any properly coded Merlin records apply for this challenge.
Good birding and happy atlasing!
Doug Hitchcox
Maine Bird Atlas - Outreach Coordinator
Maine Audubon - Staff Naturalist
207-781-2330 x237
dhit...@maineaudubon.org
Last week's results: Fantastic effort with 117 records submitted for last week’s challenges! Reminder to double-check which portal you submit to (24% of those were not in the Maine Bird Atlas). Only 2 of the 23 confirmed titmouse reports were in new blocks but 10 new blocks had probable records, so keep working on those. Looots of coded Pileated Woodpeckers, and a couple new blocks with Louisiana Waterthrush records, nicely done! Congrats to Michael from Bar Harbor, Matthew reporting in South Portland, and Emma from Brunswick for being chosen by excel’s random number generator as winners this week!
Here are the challenges for this week:
1) American Robin - this species has a ton of records (check out this map: https://ebird.org/atlasme/map/amerob) but fewer confirmed than I’d expect given how conspicuous they tend to be. Find a nesting bird before the leafs come out!
2) Yellow-rumped Warbler - the challenge here is to follow the safe dates. Until June 1st, no possible (S, H) or lower probable (P, M, S7) codes should be used. There were a lot of singing warblers reported this week but we don’t want to accidentally code migrants, so avoid those codes until the safe dates. Higher codes do supersede safe dates. Any non-coded (or correctly coded) Yellow-rumps reported on a qualifying checklist will put you in the running.
3) Merlin - perhaps one of the more interesting changes from the first atlas (1978-83) is the increase in Merlins nesting across the state. We are now within safe dates for this species so track down some possible sites to monitor through the summer. Any properly coded Merlin records apply for this challenge.
Good birding and happy atlasing!
Doug Hitchcox
Maine Bird Atlas - Outreach Coordinator
Maine Audubon - Staff Naturalist
207-781-2330 x237
dhit...@maineaudubon.org
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages