Hi everyone:
Another week, another round of challenges for the Maine Bird Atlas. See my original post if you need more background on these: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/maine-birds/Xa2xS_JuIS0/Uf0PcLAhAgAJ
If you are new to the Atlas, it is a project by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife that partners with Maine biologists and citizen scientists to document the distribution and relative abundance of all breeding and wintering birds across the entire state of Maine. You can learn more about the atlas, and find materials including the Volunteer Handbook here: maine.gov/birdatlas
A quick reminder: Please submit only eBird checklists that have at least one breeding code to the Maine Bird Atlas Portal (ebird.org/atlasme). All lists that do not have breeding codes should be entered to eBird (ebird.org) or the Maine eBird Portal (ebird.org/me).
Let's look at how we did last week:
Confirmed Codes - The goal was to report ANY confirmed code and while that number is harder to retrieve than I realized, I can report the super impressive bump of ~840 new records of confirmed species across the state's blocks. That includes quite a few that we bumped from Probable to Confirmed, which is a great thing to work on this time of year!
Probable/Confirmed goldfinches - This is a good one to keep working on this week. 5 confirmed and 23 probable records came in for this challenge, including this awesome shot Marianna Taylor got in the Hinckley SE block: https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/169768841
Confirmed swifts - We managed to get one confirmed record! Interestingly, some of the reports of Chimney Swifts this past week, where notes were included, described behaviors that could have been coded as confirmed. A good example is coding an occupied nest when "observing an adult occupying, leaving, or entering a probably nest site (visible or not) and whose behavior suggests the presence of an occupied nest." Read Page 7 of the recent newsletter for more of these tips: https://www.maine.gov/ifw/fish-wildlife/maine-bird-atlas/docs/Black-capped%20Chronicle%20Issue%204%20SpringSummer%202019.pdf
Here are the challenges for this week:
1) House Finch - With 65 possible, 36 probable, and 52 confirmed records, there are some gaps to fill with this species. They are common nesting near human dwellings (especially on porch wreaths) that it seems like we could bump this up. Also look for young birds following adults to feeders - if they are still being fed by the adults they can be coded as Recently Fledged.
2) Brown-headed Cowbird - With only 38 confirmed blocks, we need to work on this. One good thing about cowbirds is you usually get two confirmed records for one observation: you can code a chick being fed as Recently Fledged (still dependent on an adult for food) AND you can code the host parent as Feeding Young. I've seen Common Yellowthroats and Red-eyed Vireos feeding cowbird chicks over the past week at Gilsland Farm, so I bet if you keep an ear out for that raspy begging call of young cowbirds, you're likely to find it being fed within a few minutes.
3) Indigo Bunting - This is a tougher species but probably more abundant locally than you realize. Check powerlne cuts (or other edge habitats) and look for adults carrying food this week. Let's see if we can get a bump up from this 20 confirmed blocks. Use this map to see areas they've been detected (possible or probable) but haven't been confirmed yet: https://ebird.org/atlasme/map/indbun
Anyone who completes one of the challenges above will be entered to win any item of their choice (any product, style, color, size, etc) from the Maine Bird Atlas online store: teepublic.com/user/mainebirdatlas/. One entry per person per challenge (complete them all for 3x the chances of winning) from checklists submitted by 11:59PM on 1 Aug 2019.
Good birding and happy atlasing!
Doug Hitchcox
Maine Bird Atlas - Outreach Coordinator
Maine Audubon - Staff Naturalist
207-781-2330 x237
dhitchcox@maineaudubon.org
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