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April 14, 2009  Putting Birds in Squares Last year the 5-year BC breeding Bird Atlas survey took wing and I wrote a column about the undertaking. I illustrated the column with a black and white pen sketch of a Steller's Jay sternly looking out at the viewer in the style of those old "Uncle Sam Wants You" enlistment posters. The caption read "The Birds of BC Want You to Contribute to the Breeding Bird Atlas." Shortly afterwards, I produced a colour drawing of the same image for use on some of the project's promotional material. And that was about it for my active involvement with the breeding bird atlas in 2008. It might seem odd that I was reluctant to participate in The Breeding Bird Atlas, after all, I am interested in birds enough that I write a birding column - but I did have my reasons. My first impression of the Bird Atlas was - way too much complicated computer work. This turned out not to be the case. I also believed that anyone claiming one of the 10 kilometer squares was required to find all the bird nests in the square; and all bird nests were to be found for each of the five years of the survey. Added to all the above was all the required code-writing-down, and box-filling-out. I thought it would be very time consuming, and painstaking, at the best of times. Based on the misconceptions I believed that miles and miles of driving were required to gather required information, and this would contravene my self-imposed use-less-energy, burn-less-fossil-fuel undertaking. Sunday drives are out. I even abstain from going to many of my favourite birding spots, such as the south bay on Canim Lake where Western Grebe, Harlequin Duck, Scoters and Pacific Loons touch down briefly in spring and fall. Yes, it is a sacrifice but I want to stick to my resolution. Yesterday, Phil Ranson, regional coordinator for the BC Birding Atlas in the Cariboo, gave a presentation and cleared up the greatest of my misconceptions. Judging by the crowd of over twenty there were quite a few people already doing their part in 2009 to gather local breeding bird information. Recording nesting bird species turned out to be quite different from what I believed. For example, if a person surveying their square sighted a Robin with young, they would record the breeding incident, and then for the rest of the 5 years, no more Robins needed to be recorded. It was not necessary to find every Robin nest, just the one! Wow, what a revelation! That could really cut down on the driving, and hours spent in the field. As I listened to the presentation I realized there was still a lot of information to wade through, and forms still needed to be correctly filled in, but most of it made sense and could be managed. I was inspired, and decided that this year I will choose a square - or maybe even two - and contribute to the BC Breeding Bird Atlas. Although I was not officially signed up with the Bird Atlas in 2008, my personal efforts to record nests for 2008 can still be used. (I dearly wanted to record the Pacific-slope Flycatcher nesting in the yard last year). I could still report last years sightings as casual observations and they would be added to the database. Three cheers for me! Let's visit those squares. To e-mail Tom CLICK HERE To look at previous column CLICK HERE |
