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Great Backyard Bird Count



As a person who birds for fun AND is interested in bird distribution, I'd
like to address two issues Nathan Dias brought up in a recent posting on the
Great Backyard Bird Count and the Christmas Bird Count, both conducted in
North America.

His claim that Christmas Bird Counts do not produce "hard scientific
(statistically valid) data" is simply irresponsible. Check out the following
website for a vast bibliography of scientific studies based on Christmas
Bird Counts: http://www.audubon.org/bird/cbc/bb.html . (Since the GBBC is
only in its 6th year, it is, of course, too early to expect published
scientific results from it.)

Checklist programs similar to the GBBC have been used in Canada for many
years, by the way. See http://www.oiseauxqc.org/feuillets/cbcp_i_e.html for
a history of the Canadian checklist program and some of the publications
based on it.

While Nathan's claim that "Gut feelings by experienced birders are of
about as much use [as the GBBC] (and more likely to spot trends
quicker)" may have some validity on the local level, it ignores the
geographic and temporal scope of the GBBC, as well as the organizational
framework it provides. The GBBC (like other counts) collects masses of
personal observations and transforms them into data which can be shared and
compared, and will eventually provide valid information on late-winter
population dynamics and trends which I expect will lead to scientific
publications.

So have fun birding, and share the observations you made between 14 and 17
February by submitting them to the Great Backyard Bird Count,
http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/ . Checklists will be accepted through 28
February, so it's not too late to send in your sightings. And don't forget
that at the same site you can also see what species have been reported
where, and view maps to compare the distribution of species of interest to
you over the years.

Good birding!

Charlotte
Charlotte Goedsche
Weaverville NC
goedsche@mindspring.com