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December 18, 2003  Which Watch And How? For a few years now I’ve known local people who participate in a program of Bird Studies Canada named Project FeederWatch. I’ve heard much about it but never had an extra $25 for the registration fee. This year Bonnie, from 108 Mile, paid my entry fee and I joined the ranks of those who officially tally their feeder sightings and send them in at the end of a watch period, so they can be added to other bird information from across the country. Shortly after signing up, a package arrived containing the program information. I sifted through all the enclosed material. One piece of paper had a nice picture of a male House Finch with the question ‘Do you have House Finches at your feeder?’ I placed the questionnaire to one side because I have never had a House Finch come to a feeder of mine. As I was doing this I happened to look out the window and saw a male House Finch perched in the tree over the lilac bush feeder. It made its way down to the ground and spent a moment or two at the seed. I was amazed that my first House Finch arrived at the same moment the questionnaire posed its silent question. A few female House Finches visited the feeder on the following days. It seemed like I was off to a noteworthy Project FeederWatch start. The package also included a nicely illustrated colour poster of many Canadian feeder birds. On one side the western birds were displayed. The other side displayed eastern species. A calendar was supplied. It was the same size as the poster, also featured feeder birds, and showed the months for which the Project FeederWatch takes place. After penning in my counting days, I pinned it near my own calendar of sightings. The poster is very well done but I haven’t yet decided where it might be put up. At this point I must confess that I am instructionally challenged. It takes me quite a bit of time to absorb the details of new undertakings - and so it would be with the finer points of my Project Feeder Watch duties. Over the next few days I read and reread the instructions. I took them to coffee with me in the morning and studied them in bits and pieces, which is the usual way I tackle these things. Finally I thought I knew what had to be done. My first task was to consult a table that divided the FeederWatch count days according to the first initial of everyone’s surname. I would abide by the dates in the list marked "A" to "K". I now proceeded to mark off those days on the calendar. I was surprised that my counting weeks completely filled the calendar from November to March. I assumed that the A to K’s would count some weeks, and not others, while the L to Z’s would somehow fit into the weeks we did not count. I think most of my confusion in following instructions comes from trying to guess what the procedure might be before I read all the facts. Next I had to choose two consecutive count days in each of my counting periods. For instance in the count period Nov. 22 to Dec. 5 I had to find two days where I could spend a bit of time looking at the birds around my feeder. I decided Sundays and Mondays would be best. The next step was to decide which portion of my yard I would monitor for the bird count. I chose the east side of the house where I have one suet feeder and 4 seed feeders. Here is where I now got a little confused. After reading how to count birds in the yard, I thought I had to see all the bird species at a glance - essentially to take a mental freeze-frame of all the birds visible at one time. This seemed completely impossible without resorting to some guesswork. I phoned George, a man who has done FeederWatch for many years. He explained that I was being ridiculous. The idea was to count, for example, all the Black-capped Chickadees seen at one time - if eight were seen then write 8 for that species. If, on the second count day ten are seen, that will override the 8 of the first count day and you should write 10 Black-capped Chickadees on the official form. Each bird species is counted on two separate days then the higher number is chosen. George said he never wrote on the official form until he had tallied his two-day counts for all the species. Where did I get the idea that all the birds had to be counted at once? Oh well, George’s way sounded more do-able. Thanks George. I knew I wouldn’t immediately write on the official form so I did the totals on my own calendar and tried to familiarize myself with the official form. Enter my next dilemma! I had counted 11 Black-Capped Chickadees, but when I looked under the Black-capped Chickadees column there was no number 11. The boxes in the columns were numbered from 1 to 10. After which they were marked 20, 30, 40 etc. So I thought the appropriate thing to do was to put a mark beside the 10 even if I had counted 11. I thought that for some reason they would round my count to the nearest number. When next I saw George, he was flabbergasted at my lack of understanding of the whole procedure. "In order to indicate that you have seen 11 Black-capped Chickadees," he explained with great patience, "make a mark beside the 10 box, and another mark beside the 1 box. The two marks added together equal 11. There is no rounding up!" What was I thinking? I have yet to make a mark on the official form but when I do I will at least know how to do it right. This was not the end of my confusion. As my official area I had chosen to monitor the east side of the house where I can watch from the window, or the step outside. From the step I can see birds at the feeder, birds in the nearby trees, and birds that come down from above. I can also hear, by its strident call, the approach of the elusive Brown Creeper. Unfortunately the only Northern Flicker coming to my feeder doesn’t go to suet on the east side of the house. In order to have more peace between squirrels and birds, I have hung two suet feeders out of each other’s view. Will the secretive Northern Flicker go uncounted on my FeederWatch tally if I can only count from the east side of the house? This was the question I posed to George next time we met for coffee. His opinion was that unless the Flicker goes to the monitoring area it should remain uncounted. And what about a Steller’s Jay that a friend saw which managed to escape just before I was called to the window on a count day? Could I count that? By now George was exasperated. "Just write the truth," intoned George’s wife Dorothy. "I will," I wailed, "As soon as I find out what it is!" Just then another Project FeederWatch watcher walked into the restaurant. I called her over and tried to pare my newly rising conundrums down to a few simple questions since she had an appointment in 10 minutes. A lively banter ensued. When I got home I read my Project FeederWatch material again and noted a little gray oval area with an e-mail address for those who need help doing their watching and reporting. No doubt I will be contacting this help-line soon. In the meantime I won’t make any marks on my official form. Maybe George is right, my problem is I don’t believe anything anyone tells me. By the way Bonnie, you can see I’ve already got my $25 worth of entertainment out of Project FeederWatch and there are still 3 months left! To e-mail Tom CLICK HERE To look at previous column CLICK HERE |
