We birders watch birds. We count birds. We notice things, things which other people dont notice, such as Ravens extending their range down to CT, and Black Vultures extending north to CT. We notice things over years and decades, and longer (as Joe Zeranski has noted, we know the first nestings of common birds in CT, such as Turkey Vulture 1939, Cardinal 1942, Herring Gull 1943, Tufted Titmouse 1949, Great Black-backed Gull 1961, Red-bellied Woodpecker 1962, Cerulean Warbler 1968, Glossy Ibis 1971, Am. Oystercatcher 1981, Common Raven 1987 -- and who knows what is next).
We, birders, do not have to figure out WHY or HOW these changes happen (scientists can use our data to do that), but we do have to keep watching, keep recording, and continue safeguarding those old data records, because almost nobody other than birders is watching for these changes. All this data is important, taking a "snapshot" of bird distributions and numbers now, for comparisons twenty, fifty and a hundred years from now. We are practicing citizen-scientists, regardless of whether we call ourselves that or not.
STRUCTURED & UNSTRUCTURED BIRD COUNTS:
We watch and we notice these changes, thanks to us doing "structured counts", such as CBC Christmas Bird Counts, SBC Summer Bird Counts, state Bird Atlas, LIS seawatches, etc. Some of these methods are summarized below, on this website (bird-censusing.blogspot.com). The organized structured counts have generally secured their data in central databases in safe places, with backups in case of fire, flood, computer corruption, etc.
YOUR PERSONAL BIRD RECORDS:
And we, birders, also keep records of our "unstructured" personal bird trips, outside of these structured counts. Your own personal bird records may be very important, even if it is old checklists without numbers. Some of your records may be at home, on paper notebooks and checklists, and in your computer files and old floppy disks. And no one else may have a copy of these important bird records. There is a risk here, that these personal bird records may be lost, especially if not backed-up or not entered into eBird (which can accept old bird records retroactively).
We need to identify valuable old bird records and provide safekeeping for them.
SECURE AND SHARE YOUR OWN VALUABLE BIRD RECORDS:
So we are asking, if you think, that you might have, any historically important bird records, for this year, or ten years ago, or fifty years ago... if you think they might be important or significant, we ask you to contact us (see below), to discuss it with us. If you have input all your bird data into eBird, great, but if not, and if we all agree, we would ask you to give us (COA) a copy (and/or bequeath it to us) for safekeeping. We have already had several losses of important bird records, and we are trying to prevent the next wave of losses.
Please contact us in any one of these ways:
- At the COA table at the March 24 COA Annual Meeting.
- Filling-in this paper form, Archiving Valuable Old Bird Data - Google Docs
- Sending an email to robben99@gmail.com with your following information:
Lastname:
Firstname:
Email:
Phone (optional):
Description of the your potentially significant bird data/information:
