Comments on: Bird a Day

By: Kirk

Kirk — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 18:19:54 +0000

Great idea. I’d already be out of it almost immediately though as there are days pretty early on where I see nothing but nuthatches and woodpeckers. Making games of birding makes it even more enjoyable. I like simply keeping a year list and see what I find/miss. At work we printed up a bird check list on a 42 inch wide plotter and hung it up. This is year 3. We’re putting down the first date we see each species and then looking for trends. Really fun and interesting. So far some birds are showing up within hours of when they showed up the year before. Sometimes weather delays birds months.

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:50:05 +0000

Hey that sounds fun. I need something new to try, maybe I’ll give it a go.

By: Robert Mortensen

Robert Mortensen — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:03:08 +0000

That sounds like a fun bird challenge, though I think I’ll wait until next year to take a stab at it. This year I am promoting a challenge on my blog site called “210 in 2010: eBird Idaho”. Idaho birders have been a little slower to jump on the eBird bandwagon, but I am hoping to change that. The race is to be the first Idaho birder to see 210 species in Idaho; challenging but achievable. We have a second part of the challenge: Who can submit the most eBird checklists by July 29th, the 210th day of the year?

By: Mike Powers

Mike Powers — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:11:31 +0000

Ah, so just because you saw a species on one day you can count it later, assuming it’s not your bird-of-the-day from an earlier date. I thought this was a weird bird-game, encouraging you not to see a species until you needed it.

Anyway, my bird-game for the year, which I started back in November, is to collect and submit at least one eBird checklist every day. And it has to be a checklist with effort information attached – no casual “Red-tail flying over the road during my commute,” but one where I track time spent watching and distance traveled.

My real goal is to make sure I don’t skip my 15-minute “site survey” and dog-walk in the mornings before work, but I’m anxious to see what the yard list looks like next January.
-Mike

By: Nate

Nate — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:43:37 +0000

@Mike- Yes. I have to see the bird on the day. So if I have a phenomenal day out east (like I’m planning next weekend) and rack up 80+ species on a winter day, I can choose only one. So it’s my best interest to use the rarest bird I see on any given day, the one I’m least likely to see on any subsequent days and save my common species (the ones I see every day) for when I’m in a bind.

And since I’ve already used Eastern Towhee and House Sparrow, you can see how well this plan is working out for me.

By: Mike Powers

Mike Powers — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:31:43 +0000

Forgive me, but I’m slow this morning.*

If you go birding on Jan 01 and wrack up 20 species, did you just blow 20 potential date-extending sightings? Or do you only use one species from that first list (e.g., cardinal), then count a different bird the next day (titmouse), even though it was part of your previous day’s 20 species (but didn’t use it as your bird-a-day)?
-Mike

*I use that caveat most mornings, I suppose I’m just slow.

By: Nate

Nate — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 13:20:23 +0000

@Corey- Probably, but I don’t seen House Sparrows nearly as often as other people. It was by far the rarest bird I saw that day. Now when I burn off Rock Pigeon you’ll know I’m in really dire straits.

By: Corey

Corey — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 13:01:57 +0000

Looks fun…but burning HOSP on day 4 is going to make this very difficult for you…