[Maine-birds] Maine Bird Atlas - Weekly Challenges, 4/24

Hi everyone:

Last week's results:
Across all species, records in new blocks include: 89 possible, 132 probable, and 57 confirmed. These are nearly double the amount from last week (42, 94, 23 respectively) and a nice sign of the breeding season ramping up. Even the common species are hard to find in new blocks as maps fill up but it great effort all around! Cardinals were confirmed in three blocks, and Killdeer picked up 5 new blocks. Congrats to Sandra from Hollis, and Patrick from Gray for being chosen by excel's random number generator as winners this week!

Here are the challenges for this week:

1) Ruffed Grouse - similar to woodcocks (which had a nice ump with 16 new probable blocks last week!), this species is hard to confirm but relatively easy to at least get probable records. Listen (or as some people say, feel) for Ruffed Grouse drumming this week, which can be coded as probable using: C-Courtship, Display, or Copulation.

2) Common Grackle - an easy species to confirm so the point of this challenge is to remind you about safe dates. Grackles are still moving in parts of the state, but already breeding in others. Common Grackle safe dates don't start until May 1st, but most probable (except S7, M, and P) and all confirmed codes supersede safe dates… So lets fill in some of those gaps with probable and confirmed codes (no possible codes until May 1st): https://ebird.org/atlasme/map/comgra

3) Brown Creeper - given its distribution and abundance, this species should have more breeding records but has mastered camouflage to the point of making it really hard to atlas. I've seen a few reports of nest building individuals around the state lately, so time to put in some effort here. Yes, we are not within safe dates yet, so same rules apply as mentioned with the grackle. We can't get the birds to read the safe dates chart so use it as a guide but record what you see.

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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