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BIRDCHAT for Wednesday, December 23, 2009
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Subject: Re: Non-countable exotics on Christmas Bird Counts
From: Ted Floyd <tedfloyd57(AT)hotmail.com>
Date: 23 Dec 2009 6:25am
Hello, BirdChatters.
Thanks for this great discussion on exotics and the age-old question of To Count
Or Not To Count.
As Joe Morlan and others have noted, it is essential to bear in mind that
various terminologies and agendas are at play here. We're talking about:
* state/provincial bird records committees vs. the ABA Checklist Committee
* listing birds on Christmas Bird Counts vs. keeping "official" state/provincial
lists
* the uber-question of the status, in both the biological and cultural senses of
the word, of exotics
First, records committees.
1a. I agree in theory with the general sentiment here that state and provincial
bird records committees (let's call 'em BRCs) have agendas that differ from that
of the ABA Checklist Committee (let's call it the ABA CLC). If you take a
historical perspective on the matter, then it's definitely the case that the
function of the ABA CLC is to create a lister's list of countable birds for the
ABA Area. BRCs, though, have been more geared toward quantitatively archiving
avian population status; for some, but not all, BRCs, there is a major emphasis
on quantitatively archiving the populations status of *rare* birds.
1b. In reality, it's a bit trickier. First off, the ABA CLC has morphed over the
years into something more oriented toward science and less oriented toward
listing. It's been a gradual, unofficial sorta evolution, but it's undeniaby
been happening. This change is reflected in the fact that the AOU Check-list
Committee (yes, AOU Check-list with a hyphen, but ABA Checklist without; go
figure) now tends to follow the ABA CLC on questions of first occurrences for
the ABA Area. The two committees actually cooperate with one another. That's a
sea-change from the old days. Don't forget that the ABA CLC was founded in large
part because of listers' displeasure with the scientific agenda of the AOU.
1c. And what's trickier still is that many BRCs are perhaps not as "scientific"
as we (or they) might think. In most states and provinces, I would say, BRC
folks are in bed with the state's hard-core listing community. No surprise there
at all. Indeed, it's natural. Listers tend to be interested in what BRCs are up
to, and BRCs surely recognize the immense "human resource" presented by the
listing community. Indeed, a BRC would be insane just to blow off the listing
community. I totally accept that. Likewise, I accept that BRCs tend to have a
bias toward listing.
1d. Black-hooded Parakeets. I'll revisit the matter more broadly below, because
I think it gets at the heart of the problem. Here, and just briefly, I want to
reply to Jeff Bouton's request for "intel" on why Black-hooded Parakeet isn't on
the ABA Checklist. One thing to consider is that the ABA CLC has, over the
years, had an undeniably strong disdain for exotics. The ABA CLC, in its report
in the October 1994 Birding (pp. 320-326), is oozing with sarcasm and contempt
in its treatment of the Himalayan Snowcock. Its rant against this species
concludes with the following, which I'll put in caps here, in case you're not
reading this whole, long message of mine: "THE ABA CLC IS NEVER ENTHUSIASTIC
ABOUT ADDING AN INTRODUCED SPECIES TO OUR CHECKLIST, ESPECIALLY WHEN POPULATION
SIZE IS LIKELY TO REMAIN CONSTRAINED. THE NEGATIVE VOTE IS MERELY A STRONGER
EXPRESSION OF THAT SENTIMENT." Now, with the enlightened Bill Pranty currently
at the helm, we can hope that that sentiment is being reversed somewhat.
Nonethless, and to get back to Jeff's question, I'll just say for now that the
American birding (lower-case b) community has a long tradition of contempt for
non-native bird species.
Second, Christmas Bird Counts.
2a. As others have noted, there is necessarily some element of subjectivity in
whether to include a non-countable exotic in the results. My own instinct would
be to err on the side of inclusivity. If a bird is "behaving wildly," as Brandon
Best says, then I would recommend inclusion on a CBC. A few days ago, I
mentioned the half-dozen California Quail visiting a feeder on a recent Colorado
CBC I participated in; I'd count them. Even more recently, on another Colorado
CBC I participated in, a Mandarin Duck was part of the tally; makes sense to me,
as the bird was doing its thing, in the wild, where it was "behaving widly." On
that same CBC, though, I didn't bother entering the Red Junglefowl I heard
crowing at dawn, as that bird was hanging out near a barn where it wasn't really
"behaving wildly."
2b. Despite the element of subjectivity, it would be nice, as Wayne Weber notes,
to have some general guidelines when it comes to exotics on the CBC. On that
note, I haveta say, I'm not sure I understand how Audubon/CBC arrives at its
determinations about which exotics are included and which are not. If you go to
the latest issue of American Birds, which reports CBC data annually, you'll see
that, say, Eurasian Collared-Dove and Spot-breasted Oriole count, whereas Purple
Swamphen and Blue-crowned Parakeet, say, do not. Fine, the collared-dove and
oriole are "officially" on the ABA list, whereas the swamphen and parakeet are
not. But it's not that simple. I see, for example, that Black-hooded Parakeet
(not on the ABA list) *does* count, yet Blue-crowned Parakeet (also not on the
ABA list) does *not* count. So I'm not sure what the criteria are for the
dreaded EX symbol on CBCs.
2c. The problem of competitiveness. I think we just have to live with this one.
The "good," "virtuous," "scientific" side of me prizes the CBC for its
contributions to long-term population monitoring: local declines of Horned
Larks, the northward spread of the Red-bellied Woodpecker, a continental
range-shift in the Rough-legged Hawk, all that sorta stuff. Then again, I
totally know where Jerry Friedman is coming from when he says, "I must admit
that in the afternoon I have some tendency to look for species I haven't gotten
yet." We just can't help ourselves. Even noble compilers. For a telling example,
check out the 4th paragraph in this short posting to the Ornith-L list:
http://tiny.cc/vhpEH.
2d. But maybe we can just all relax? I guess I don't really care what Santa
Barbara's "official" tally was. The more important thing is that CBCs, by and
large, are doing a decent job of recording data on exotics. If you check out,
say, the Pasadena CBC data, you'll see that, last year, they had 1200 Rock
Pigeons, 5 Eurasian Collared-Doves, 350 Mitred Parakeets, 122 Yellow-chevroned
Parakeets, 3050 (!) Red-crowned Parrots, 2 Yellow-headed Parrots, 750 Amazona
sp., 98 Red-whiskered Bulbuls, 428 European Starlings, 277 House Sparrows, 11
Red Bishops, and 1 Nutmeg Mannikin. In a sense, the question of what to "count"
is moot. The birds simply *were* counted, the data have been entered, and that's
that. If your agenda is scientific, you've got your data; if your agenda is
listing, you can fiddle with the list however you see fit.
Third, the broader question of exotics.
3a. No question about it, the listing community (and therefore the BRC community
and culture; see 1c above) has longstanding, deep-rooted "issues" with exotics.
Listers have a well developed sense of "playing by the rules," and there's long
been the sense that "exotics don't count."
3b. A clear-cut distinction between "native" and "exotic" birds may have existed
in birders' minds 40 years ago. But I don't see how we can persist in that
belief, in this day and age. Deep down, we know the dirty truth: This ABA Area
of ours is overrun with established exotics: Egyptian Goose, Mandarin Duck,
Common Peafowl, Purple Swamphen, Rose-ringed Parakeet, Peach-faced Lovebird,
Black-hooded Parakeet, Blue-crowned Parakeet, Mitred Parakeet, Lilac-crowned
Parrot, Black-throated Magpie-Jay, House Crow, Hill Myna, Orange Bishop, Nutmeg
Mannikin--just to name a quick 15 that aren't on the ABA list.
3c. And I think we have to let go of the cherished old notion that there's
something somehow pure or righteous or virtuous about all the birds that aren't
classified as "exotics." I mean, some of our most thrilling vagrants get here by
riding on boats; practically every single rare East Coast hummingbird is seen
at a feeder, as if they were barnyard ducks; and the northward expansion of
scores of birds is being propelled by anthropogenic climate change, many people
would say. The distinction between human-assisted occurrences of birds vs.
natural occurrences just doesn't hold water anymore. Oh, it's a lovely notion.
But "such a statement is beyond rational biological thought," to quote Bill
Pranty in a forthcoming article in Birding. If you're gonna count a Calliope
Hummingbird at a feeder in Manhattan, then you oughtta count free-flying parrots
in Pasadena; if you're gonna count some rare gull, displaced by anthropogenic
human change and subsisting on human handouts, then you might as well count
free-range swamphens in the Everglades.
3d. And, truth, be told, we *are* coming around to this way of thinking. Check
out the listing pages on eBird. Mike San Miguel just added Egyptian Goose (#432)
to his ABA Area list for 2009, and Lauren Harter just added Mandarin Duck
(#420) to her ABA Area list for 2009. Life lists, too. Howard King just added
Orange Bishop (#712) to his ABA Area life list, and Craig Caldwell just added
Ruddy Shelduck (#675) to his ABA Area life list.
3e. Final thought. In the forthcoming (Jan. 2010) issue of Birding, Ted Eubanks
has a commentary on the future of birding. Birding is undergoing profound
changes, and many of the establishment icons of modern birding--Eubanks cites
Audubon, the ABA, local bird clubs, the journal North American Birds, and print
field guides--are either going to change dramatically or go extinct. Our
attitudes are changing, too. I just put California Quail on my Colorado life
list, and, as Joe Morlan says, nobody can stop me from doing do. And on
Christmas Day, my kids and I are going to look for that Mandarin Duck a few
miles to the north of our house. If we find it, I'm counting it too.
-------------------------------
Ted Floyd
Editor, Birding
Check out Birding magazine on Twitter: http://twitter.com/BirdingMagazine
-------------------------------
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Subject: Re: Non-countable exotics on Christmas Bird
Counts
From: Eric DeFonso <bay.wren(AT)gmail.com>
Date: 23 Dec 2009 9:44am
Hi everyone,
I appreciate all the contributions to this thread, especially Ted's
latest. In it he wrote a great many things that make a lot of sense to
me and are illuminating, but I felt compelled to respond to one
particular item in his list:
"3c. And I think we have to let go of the cherished old notion that
there's something somehow pure or righteous or virtuous about all the
birds that aren't classified as "exotics." I mean, some of our most
thrilling vagrants get here by riding on boats; practically every
single rare East Coast hummingbird is seen at a feeder, as if they
were barnyard ducks; and the northward expansion of scores of birds is
being propelled by anthropogenic climate change, many people would
say. The distinction between human-assisted occurrences of birds vs.
natural occurrences just doesn't hold water anymore. Oh, it's a lovely
notion. But "such a statement is beyond rational biological thought,"
to quote Bill Pranty in a forthcoming article in Birding."
I disagree strongly with this idea - I in fact do believe that we need
to hold on to the notion that there is in fact something more virtuous
about non-exotic species. That notion is what underlies a great many
if not all of our conservation programs. I also do not consider all
human-assisted occurrences to be equal. To do otherwise is to
obliterate the very notion that there even is such a thing as an
exotic species, because humanity's mere presence on the planet can be
argued to affect every single natural occurrence now, at least to some
microscopic extent. Under that thinking every bird we see or hear is
'unnatural', and I don't think any of us here deep down really believe
that.
If we are to honestly accept the idea that a vagrant Streak-backed
Oriole surviving at a Colorado feeder in December is entirely
equivalent to a released Helmeted Guineafowl in some city park by its
bored owner, then we are pretending that all human-affected
'bird-events' are also equivalent, regardless of degree or character.
Does Ted's Manhattan Calliope not deserve any special recognition for
the fact that even though that particular individual is utilizing a
feeder, he is at least of a lineage of survivors on this continent,
and was borne of a native population that subsisted for thousands of
generations without them? Are those millennia of proving itself over
glacial and interglacial epochs really no different than that single
Spot-billed Duck that some collector allowed to get out of its pen and
tag along with some Mallards at the local reservoir for a season?
I guess I do still see a difference, a big one, and that time- and
space-scales mean something. We're talking orders of magnitude
differences here. Because of that I still think native species deserve
more recognition and respect than those which aren't, because they are
this continent's heritage. I think that heritage is important, if for
no other reason than it helps us to understand where we come from and
perhaps help us discern where we're going.
It's true that we are free to maintain our lists however we want them,
and I wouldn't have it any other way. And I agree with the idea that
'wildly-behaving' exotics in our area can't simply be ignored on
counts or any other bird survey that at least attempts to be
scientific. But let's keep calling an exotic an exotic, and quibble if
we must over where to draw the line. Let's not pretend that no line
exists.
--
Eric DeFonso
Fort Collins, CO
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Subject: Re: Non-countable exotics on Christmas Bird
Counts
From: "Mitch" <mitch(AT)utopianature.com>
Date: 23 Dec 2009 10:36am
Hi all,
While the CA BRC does have mechanisms for the
intro-exotic situation, like many of its mechanisms, it
doesn't work very well. The rules are not applied the
same for each case.
In Calif. the Common Peafowl has met all the the
requirements of any introduced species, on the
Palos Verdes Peninsula (PVP), where it was introduced
in the 1920's. As the late great Arnold Small said,
"it's too big and pretty, if it were small and brown,
it would countable now."
Some parrots are countable in CA that were released or
escaped 5+ decades after peafowl were self-supporting
on the PVP.
On the PVP, Peafowl has expanded to fill all available
habitat, survived multiple major culls (70 birds each time,
twice since 1970's) and been present there many decades
longer than Starling, but guess which one "counts".
We CBC compilers always turned them in, despite the
editors at times unlearned remarks about including them
and kept the records ourselves for all the obvious reasons
others have mentioned. The genius expert countability
deciders allowed us to officially count Ring-necked Pheasant,
which were releasees, but not self-sustaining local-bred Peafowl.
Heck, I can count a Red-crowned Parrot in L.A., CA, that
might be an original escapee from Mexico, but not a
30th generation home-grown Peafowl. That is ridiculous.
I don't care what the rules are, but believe those that
make them, should follow them, the same for everything,
and they don't. The CA BRC certainly has not IMHO.
For non-native exotics, I say keep track of everything, as it
is sometimes hard to tell today what will matter tomorrow.
Mitch
Mitch Heindel
Utopia, TX
former PVP CBC co-compiler
www.utopianature.com
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Subject: Chicago Monk Parakeets ARE countable
From: "Michael L. P. Retter" <mlretter(AT)yahoo.com>
Date: 23 Dec 2009 12:17pm
This topic created quite an uproar in Illinois and Indiana a few months ago, due
to criterion 7) listed at http://www.aba.org/checklist/exotics.html
It says, "For instance, the Monk Parakeet population at Chicago, Illinois is
wholly dependent on bird seed provided by humans during the winter months, and
this population therefore is not recognized by the CLC as established, despite
its size or persistence."
The statement is false, but back to that in a bit. More importantly, I always
thought that according to ABA listing rules, once a species is on the ABA
Checklist, it's up to individual states whether a species is established.
Essentially, there is a policy of federalism with regards to countability and
acceptance of bird records.
For example, for a long time, Trumpeter Swans (a reintroduced exotic) were
countable in MO but not in IL, so a TRUS would count on your ABA list in MO, but
the same individual would not could if you saw it only after it flew into IL.
The same is true of the famous 2001 St. Louis Smew, which was accepted as wild
by MO but rejected by IL.
I wanted to check, so I contacted someone on the ABA CLC committee.
His response stated:
"You are basically correct. Once a species is added to the ABA Checklist by the
ABA committee, the latter doesn't deal with subsequent records/populations, be
they vagrants or introduced species. But there is the possibility that when Monk
Parakeet was considered for addition by the ABA committee many years ago that
it considered "all" the various populations present and may have said something
along the lines that they were accepting the FL and NY/CT/RI birds, leaving out
places like Chicago, Austin, etc. But that was a long time ago, and I really
don't remember what was said back then. Of course more years have passed since
then anyway. In my opinion one should just follow the state committees on things
like this, and if IL/IN/TX accept them, so be it. Granted, the acceptance
criteria from state to state will vary, and some states may be decidedly on the
"loose" end versus others."
Other sources from within ABA have told me that according to the bylaws, the
committee has no jurisdiction in this matter. Thus, the statement on the webpage
is nothing more than a non-binding recommendation. It's like a congressional
resolution or a "Sense of the Senate" proclamation.
If the ABA CLC is going to try to stick its nose into local birding politics,
large battles are inevitable. Using Monk Parakeets' partial reliance on humans
to make them noncountable is illogical; following this idea, we should not count
any Chimney Swifts or eastern Purple Martins because they depend on human
structures for nesting. And what about the Rufous Hummingbirds that show up at
eastern feeders in the winter? They'd die other wise, so I guess we can't count
them either.
But the Chicago Monks DO eat native foodstuffs, which makes the CLC statement
doubly irrelevant. Here's what Chicago birder and Illinois Ornithological
Records Committee member Paul Clyne said during the aforementioned local
discussion:
"Monk Parakeets' ability to find non-feeder food sources in winter was addressed
by the Illinois Ornithological Records Committee when it voted to add this
species to the Illinois list in 1999. Already at that time, evidence of the
sort...Monk Parakeets feeding on frozen fruit in the dead of winter - was
available. So, [contrary to] the American Birding Association's Checklist
Committee (CLC), the Monk Parakeet population at Chicago is NOT 'wholly
dependent on bird seed provided by humans during the winter months.'"
And here's what the Indiana Bird Records Committee said when it accepted the
species for Indiana in 2003. They have some of their facts wrong (see above),
but their reasoning is sound and, I feel, properly addresses he larger question
posed here.
> The question confronting members was whether the
> Chicago-area population should be considered established.
> At the 2003 IBRC annual meeting, members voted to adopt the
> American Birding Association’s four-item guideline for
> deciding when an introduced species becomes established.
> The Illinois Monk Parakeet population easily meets the first
> three criteria. The fourth standard states the population
> should not be directly dependent on human support for
> survival. Scientific articles written about the
> Chicago-area population clearly indicate that the birds
> survive the winter only because they are able to obtain food
> at birdfeeders. But, IBRC members felt that the feeding of
> birds in winter was incidental to Monk Parakeet survival
> since individuals are not doing so solely for the sake of
> the parakeets. In other words, humans are not directly
> assisting the Monk Parakeets; they are simply putting out
> birdseed which the parakeets take advantage of.
>
> Multiple members stated that if Monk Parakeets were
> considered to be directly dependent on humans for survival
> then we would have to discount reports of a host of species,
> which avail themselves of feeders in winter. This is
> especially true of hummingbirds and other winter rarities
> such as orioles or tanagers. Some members thought that
> this reasoning would also prevent the IBRC from accepting
> Purple Martin nesting records since this species only uses
> manmade structures in the eastern United States.
> Therefore, members decided that Monk Parakeets should be
> considered as an established species for Indiana as their
> presence meets the guidelines established by the American
> Birding Association. This constitutes a first state
> record. (Although Monk Parakeets have been observed in
> Indiana previously those records were not accepted because
> the birds were not considered established until recently).
> One IBRC member dissented believing the species should
> not
> be considered as established, but he did not elaborate on
> his decision. Besides the documentation and photograph,
> the committee reviewed four Monk Parakeet articles and
> personal comments from the Illinois records committee
> chairman. Illinois accepted the species to its state list
> in 1999.
The bottom line is that states and provinces have the power here, not the ABA
CLC.
Michael L. P. Retter
---------------------------------
W. Lafayette, Tippecanoe Co., IN
mlretter AT yahoo.com
home: 765.838.3152
cell: 309.824.7317
http://xenospiza.com/
Tour Leader, Tropical Birding
http://www.tropicalbirding.com/
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Subject: Non-countable exotics OR "Birder bias"?
From: Arie Gilbert <ariegilbert(AT)optonline.net>
Date: 23 Dec 2009 1:10pm
Birdchaters,
An element that has not been mentioned is "birder bias". This plays into
why some birds are countable, and some are countable some places and not
others.
Ever notice the differences in exuberance when someone says: " There's a
Blackburnian!", and the often much more subdued: "It's just a gull".
This can be heard on bird walks, and was pointed out to me by a friend
who happened to be quite fond of gulls, and chagrined that they are
often maligned in this manner. Not that I am standing up for gulls
necessarily, but simply pointing out that we all have biases, and they
translate into what birds we feel should or should not be countable. And
as records committees are staffed with people, they suffer the same
weaknesses that the rest of the birding community have.
Some folks I know vociferously denounce House Sparrow. I like them
because they are like a lighthouse beacon that attracts other birds to
my feeders that might otherwise pass by if not for the commotion. Also,
I have found that flocks of them harbor rarities and so I have learned
that it pays to look through them. OTOH There is no question that they
are counted, countable, and established.
Finally, I think the rules should be in place, but tweaked as is now,
based upon circumstances. We would not want to allow counting of Inca
Tern right after the storm a few years ago released some from the Bronx
Zoo...
Perhaps some places should revisit what is and what is not countable,
though I still maintain it's your list, count what you want, and don't
expect others to bend to suit you.
Arie Gilbert
No. Babylon, NY
> Hi all,
>
> While the CA BRC does have mechanisms for the
> intro-exotic situation, like many of its mechanisms, it
> doesn't work very well. The rules are not applied the
> same for each case.
>
> In Calif. the Common Peafowl has met all the the
> requirements of any introduced species, on the
> Palos Verdes Peninsula (PVP), where it was introduced
> in the 1920's. As the late great Arnold Small said,
> "it's too big and pretty, if it were small and brown,
> it would countable now."
>
> Some parrots are countable in CA that were released or
> escaped 5+ decades after peafowl were self-supporting
> on the PVP.
>
> On the PVP, Peafowl has expanded to fill all available
> habitat, survived multiple major culls (70 birds each time,
> twice since 1970's) and been present there many decades
> longer than Starling, but guess which one "counts".
>
> We CBC compilers always turned them in, despite the
> editors at times unlearned remarks about including them
> and kept the records ourselves for all the obvious reasons
> others have mentioned. The genius expert countability
> deciders allowed us to officially count Ring-necked Pheasant,
> which were releasees, but not self-sustaining local-bred Peafowl.
>
> Heck, I can count a Red-crowned Parrot in L.A., CA, that
> might be an original escapee from Mexico, but not a
> 30th generation home-grown Peafowl. That is ridiculous.
>
> I don't care what the rules are, but believe those that
> make them, should follow them, the same for everything,
> and they don't. The CA BRC certainly has not IMHO.
>
> For non-native exotics, I say keep track of everything, as it
> is sometimes hard to tell today what will matter tomorrow.
>
> Mitch
>
> Mitch Heindel
> Utopia, TX
> former PVP CBC co-compiler
> www.utopianature.com
>
> BirdChat Guidelines: http://www.ksu.edu/audubon/chatguidelines.html
> Archives: http://listserv.arizona.edu/archives/birdchat.html
>
>
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Subject: CBC origins: is it a competition or not?
From: John Puschock <g_g_allin(AT)hotmail.com>
Date: 23 Dec 2009 3:05pm
Hi all,
Sorry for taking the Christmas Bird Count discussion back in another direction,
but earlier there was some negative talk about those who view the CBC as a
competition rather than a census/survey. Now I've never been a fan of the
competitive approach, since the data are used to track population trends, etc.,
but given the CBC's origins -- a replacement of a hunt that was purely a
competition (see http://www.audubon.org/bird/cbc/history.html) -- is it not
those of us who are anti-competition the ones who are hijacking the event and
not the other way around? Does anyone know if the early CBCs had tones of a
competition? Were there 'winners' when the results were reported?
John Puschock
Seattle, WA
g_g_allin(AT)hotmail.com
http://www.zbirdtours.com & http://www.birdtreks.com
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Subject: Re: CBC History (was origins)
From: Roy Harvey <rmharvey(AT)snet.net>
Date: 23 Dec 2009 3:16pm
--- On Wed, 12/23/09, John Puschock <g_g_allin(AT)HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
> Now I've never been a fan of the
> competitive approach, since the data are used to track
> population trends, etc., but given the CBC's origins -- a
> replacement of a hunt that was purely a competition (see
http://www.audubon.org/bird/cbc/history.html) -- is it
> not those of us who are anti-competition the ones who are
> hijacking the event and not the other way around?
That particular web page that John linked to has bugged me for years. It is
titled History, but the most that can be said for it is that it tries to
describe the origin. With the 110th CBC in progress you would think that there
must have been a bit of History worth telling about for the 108 in between.
Even such basic information as when the 15 mile circle was instituted is missing
from the CBC site, or at least I could not find it when I searched a couple of
years ago.
Roy Harvey
Beacon Falls, CT
(who gets bugged by the oddest things)
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Subject: Re: Non-countable exotics on Christmas Bird
Counts
From: Joseph Morlan <jmorlan(AT)gmail.com>
Date: 23 Dec 2009 5:56pm
On Wed, 23 Dec 2009 10:00:12 -0600, Mitch <mitch(AT)UTOPIANATURE.COM> wrote:
>On the PVP, Peafowl has expanded to fill all available
>habitat, survived multiple major culls (70 birds each time,
>twice since 1970's) and been present there many decades
>longer than Starling, but guess which one "counts".
>We CBC compilers always turned them in, despite the
>editors at times unlearned remarks about including them
>and kept the records ourselves for all the obvious reasons
>others have mentioned. The genius expert countability
>deciders allowed us to officially count Ring-necked Pheasant,
>which were releasees, but not self-sustaining local-bred Peafowl.
The data has not been discarded or lost as you seem to suggest. A quick
check of Common Peafowl numbers reported on The PVP CBC indicate a high of
78 birds and a low of 6 since 1973 when the species was first recorded. A
couple of years (1982 and 1996), the species was missed entirely.
This is not my idea of a well established self-sustaining population. But
does it really matter? If you believed they should count, nobody stopped
you.
--
Joseph Morlan, Pacifica, CA jmorlan (at) ccsf.edu
SF Birding Classes start Feb.9 http://fog.ccsf.edu/jmorlan/
California Bird Records Committee http://www.californiabirds.org/
Western Field Ornithologists http://www.westernfieldornithologists.org/
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Subject: Re: CBC History (was origins)
From: "John W. Shipman" <john(AT)nmt.edu>
Date: 23 Dec 2009 6:30pm
On Wed, 23 Dec 2009,
+-- John Puschock <g_g_allin(AT)HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
| ...(see http://www.audubon.org/bird/cbc/history.html)...
+--
+-- Roy Harvey wrote:
| That particular web page that John linked to has bugged me for
| years. It is titled History, but the most that can be said for
| it is that it tries to describe the origin. With the 110th CBC
| in progress you would think that there must have been a bit of
| History worth telling about for the 108 in between. Even such
| basic information as when the 15 mile circle was instituted is
| missing from the CBC site, or at least I could not find it when
| I searched a couple of years ago.
+--
Here is some sketchy information on methodology changes:
http://www.nmt.edu/~shipman/z/cbc/methodology.html
This page is based on information provided to me some time ago
by Marty Floyd, of the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Hope it helps.
If anyone can provide additional details, I'll be glad to add
them to this page.
Best regards,
John Shipman, john(AT)nmt.edu: state editor for Christmas Bird Counts
507 Fitch NW, Socorro, NM 87801; USA (505) 835-0235
http://www.nmt.edu/~shipman/z/cbc/nmcbc.html
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Subject: Hilton Pond 12/12/09
From: "Bill Hilton Jr. (RESEARCH)" <research(AT)hiltonpond.org>
Date: 23 Dec 2009 9:44pm
We don’t usually travel to Costa Rica until our winter banding season starts in
mid-January, but this week we were down in San Jose at the request of Ernesto
Carman Jr.--our in-country guide and colleague during Neotropical hummingbird
research. Seems Ernesto wanted a legal witness/best man for his wedding, so we
were delighted to journey south for the event. While there we also spent lots of
time observing native flora and fauna we’ve described in the 12-21 December
2009 installment of “This Week at Hilton Pond.” To view photos of the new bride
and groom--plus lots of images (and a video) of Costa Rican plants and
animals--please visit http://www.hiltonpond.org/ThisWeek091212.html. We also
include our usual list, albeit brief, of birds banded at Hilton Pond during the
period.
Please note we still have a few slots available for our Week Two hummingbird
expedition to Costa Rica, beginning 2 February 2010.
Happy (Holiday) Nature Watching!
BILL
=========
RESEARCH PROGRAM
c/o BILL HILTON JR. Executive Director
Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History
1432 DeVinney Road, York, South Carolina 29745 USA
(803) 684-5852
Please visit our web sites (courtesy of Comporium.net):
Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History at http://www.hiltonpond.org
"Operation RubyThroat: The Hummingbird Project" at http://www.rubythroat.org
==================
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