Patricia Lindsay and I are finishing up our summer season report for NYC and Long Island, which includes the many avian impacts of tropical storm Irene through the end of August. One of the biggest challenges is distilling numbers from sites visited by multiple parties (e.g., Mecox to Montauk) and from areas where multiple parties were working in close proximity (e.g., Manhattan's Hudson River shore). In all cases, what would be most helpful are statements expressing observers' insights into how their birds fit with those of others who were afield around them.
By the way, eBird is not helpful in this regard because (a) different observers often see different examples of a particular species from the same site; and (b) a single well-seen bird is often reported under multiple, slightly different, location names. A simple note like the following could be very helpful, "The Sooty Tern we saw at Zach's Bay was the same as the one photographed earlier by P & S and seen later by Steve S.; but I think we were the only people to see a Bridled Tern at Cedar Beach--and this was many hours later than the one photographed resting at West Gilgo." To this end, a number of reports between Fire Island Inlet and Pt Lookout on 28 Aug have been closely compared, yielding confident composite counts of widely reported species such as Sandwich, Bridled, and Sooty Terns. But the situations in other well-covered areas are less clear. Again, even the briefest of clarifications would be most welcome. More expansive accounts would be appreciated also, and considered for publication as notes or articles in The Kingbird. Shai Mitra Bay Shore ________________________________ Change is in the Air - Smoking in Designated Areas Only in effect.<http://www.csi.cuny.edu/tobaccofree> Tobacco-Free Campus as of July 1, 2012. -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
