Hi New York Birders, We would like to announce the NYC Area eBird-a-thon 2011, a contest to span the upcoming year in the eight counties covered by the NYC Area Rare Bird Alert--Bronx, Kings, Nassau, New York, Queens, Richmond, Suffolk, and Westchester.
The goal of this contest is to submit both as many *species* and as many *complete checklists* to eBird as possible from your county, and winners will be decided by the existing Top 100 <http://ebird.org/ebird/top100Location.form>page at eBird, which keeps track of eBirders with the highest number of checklists and species in a given geographical area. The catch is that a person's standing in the contest will be decided by both their rank in terms of number of species AND number of checklists, so it is important to work on both! In particular, the New York City Metro Area is home to a large concentration of birders who are already collecting invaluable data on a regular basis every time they go birding, and we'd love to see that information contributed to eBird (and through it, the Avian Knowledge Network) so it can be used in analyses of the birds we all care about and accessible to anyone. Indeed, eBird grows more valuable and becomes a more complete representation of avian occurrences as more birders contribute to its database, which already numbers in the millions of checklists. In addition, it is an easy and powerful way to keep track of one's personal sightings. Ebird uses a user's submitted observations to generate an impressive amount of birding "stats", from worldwide life lists to month county lists, all of which can be very useful. A first, second and third place prize will be given out for each county, as well as cumulatively (adding up eBirders' species and checklists from all eight counties). Prizes include subscriptions to Birds of North America Online and the CD Voices of North American Owls. In all, over $1300 worth of prizes will be given out at the end of 2011, donated by the Cornell Lab. The only requirement to participate is a free eBird account--if you submit a checklist in any county listed above, you're automatically in the running. If you don't yet use eBird, try using it to keep track of your 2011 year list. Or, if you already do, perhaps attempt a big year in your county! See the information and rules <http://wp.me/PxRb4-vj> page ( http://wp.me/PxRb4-vj). Once the contest begins, standings will be available here<http://novahunter.blogspot.com/2010/12/nyc-area-ebird-thon-2011.html>( http://novahunter.blogspot.com/2010/12/nyc-area-ebird-thon-2011.html). Feel free to respond to this email with any questions or comments. Good eBirding, and see you in the field! Chris Wood Benjamin Van Doren Ben Cacace -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
