[Maine-birds] Maine Bird Atlas - Weekend Challenges, 6/22

Hi everyone:

This is a great week for early milestones: we cracked 500 participants (one of last week's challenges) and passed 25% of blocks in Maine having at least one checklist submitted (and 35% of Priority Blocks with data). You can keep tabs on the state-level results here: https://ebird.org/atlasme/state/US-ME?atlasPeriod=EBIRD_ATL_ME_2018

Before the new challenges, let's see how you all did last week…

Red-eyed Vireo - the goal of bumping up possible to probable records was fairly successful, from 106 probable last week to 144. More impressive was the spike in possible reports from 197 to 273! Great work getting more singing birds entered, now see if we can get those up to probable with "S7".

Northern Cardinal - from 15 to 19 confirmed records - good work but keep the reports coming!

Fledge an Atlaser - GREAT WORK! Nearly 50 new atlasers reported lists over the past week.

NEW CHALLENGES:

1) Black-capped Chickadee - Over the past week it seems chickadees are growing up quickly - I had a family with "recently fledged" birds that were practically identical to the adults (tails fully grown and gape lines very hard to see). The begging young have a distinct nasal whine that is pretty easy to detect right now (similar to this: https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/207274). Let's see if we can bump up the confirmed blocks this week; the bar is set at 95 confirmed blocks.

2) Song Sparrow - like the chickadee, another widespread species with quite a few confirmed blocks already (119) but we can do better. They should be busy carry mouthfuls of food to chicks this week so get those "carrying food" or "feeding young" records in.

3) Wild Turkey - this is a species we expected to see one of the largest increases from the first atlas but it is a slow start so far. The first poults were running around Gilsland Farm this week so I suspect more will be seen around the state soon. Currently at 34 confirmed blocks, there must be more out there.

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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