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
**SAFE DATES**
Fall migration is underway, meaning birds that have finished breeding are moving off their nesting grounds. Because of this, we are now moving out of the safe dates for quite a few birds. Remember that and confirmed breeding code and most probable codes (except S7, M, P) supersede safe dates. You should not report possible codes (or those probable codes just mentioned) once outside of the safe dates. There is a handy graph of safe dates, sorted by end date, available here: https://www.maine.gov/ifw/fish-wildlife/maine-bird-atlas/docs/Safe%20Dates%20Graphs%20sorted%20by%20end%20date.pdf
Let's look at how we did last week:
Eastern Phoebe - Seven new blocks with confirmed record! And those were all new blocks, not just bumped up probable records - great work for a species now up at 427 confirmed blocks!
Common Loons - Even better than phoebes (especially given the more restricted breeding habitat) we got eight more blocks with confirmed loons. There are more of those adorable fuzzy chicks out there!
Cedar Waxwings - 11(!) new confirmed blocks - you guys are doing great! - with at least five of these being bumped up from probable records. Nice to see this uptick and one to keep looking for over the next week or so.
Here are the challenges for this week:
1) Visit new Priority Blocks - A great late season activity is trying to fill in data for priority blocks. You can look up priority blocks in your county using tools in the Maine Bird Atlas eBird Portal, like this list of Priority Blocks in Penobscot County: https://ebird.org/atlasme/county/US-ME-019/regions?atlasPeriod=EBIRD_ATL_ME_2018&rank=mrec&blockFilter=priority You can even sort these by diurnal effort hours to see the blocks with the fewest amount of effort so far. Can you find a priority block near you and spend some time this week looking for breeding behavior? Currently, 73.31% of Priority Blocks have some data.
2) Confirm Northern Mockingbird - Sorry for another mostly-southern species but this is one that I've seen feeding young recently and their map has a lot of possible/probable records that could be checked on this week to see about bumping up to confirmed. Review mockingbird's breeding map here and see if you can find any this week: https://ebird.org/atlasme/map/normoc
3) Confirm Woodpeckers - Any woodpecker will do. This week at Gilsland Farm we had a second brood of Red-bellied Woodpeckers chasing adults around, begging for food by the feeders. Keep an eye out for this or other behaviors this week.
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 15 Aug 2019. (P.S. I'll need a couple more days to filter last week's winners so you can still sneak in checklists from last week if you forgot to submit that breeding loon!)
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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