[Maine-birds] Maine Bird Atlas - Weekly Challenges, 5/15

Hi everyone:

Last week's results:
American Robins got 8 new blocks with confirmed records! 21 new blocks with probable isn't too shabby but worth revisiting to bump those up. Wow, that Yellow-rumped Warbler challenge may have been too ambitious on my part: there were 1236 records of this species reported over the past week! The challenge was to encourage proper use of safe dates but there seemed to be a lot of errors still being made. Remember, until you are within the species' safe dates, no possible (S, H) or lower probable (P, M, S7) codes should be used. Merlins picked up 7 new blocks with probable records but 14 new with 'observed' records, so those should be watched carefully. Congrats to Noah from Portland, Ed from Falmouth, and Shawn from Frenchville for being chosen by excel's random number generator as winners this week!

Here are the challenges for this week:

1) Ruffed Grouse - repeating from a couple weeks ago, but the species with the most new block record for any category this past week was probable records of Ruffed Grouse. Remember that drumming can be coded with the probable "courtship, display, or copulation" code.

2) Carolina Wren - this one is a bit more range restricted in Maine, but comparing eBird sightings over the atlas to breeding records, we've got a lot to fill in. We are within safe dates now for Carolina Wren, and already have reports of nests and young this year, so any record will put you in the running this week. https://ebird.org/atlasme/map/carwre

3) American Bittern - another tough species to confirm so let's put in effort getting records up to probable. We are in the safe dates so all codes apply: vocalizing "thunder pumping" birds can be coded as "S" singing, but heard for seven or more days they can be bumped up to "S7".

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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