[mou] Comments on MOURC, long

[Jeff Price]

Jim Willaims said -
> They are important, however, in large part because
> something is better than
> nothing. These correspondents also suggest that
> seasonal reporting could be
> improved if observers returned on a regular basis to
> the same locales, so
> bird population fluctuations could be tracked season
> to season and year to
> year. Much of our bird reporting is driven by the
> happenstance location of
> misplaced migrants or the popularity of birding
> hotspots. How much of this
> state goes uncovered simply by neglect?

A couple of points to add to Jim's excellent comments.
 Part of the problem from a scientific point of view
is what can ba called a lack of negative data. 
Positive data is 'a bird was detected', negative data
is 'a bird was NOT detected'.  This differs from 'no
report' in that you know the species was looked for. 
So, the BBS/CBC/BBA, etc are all better than seasonal
reports in that you know that observers were looking
to detect all of the species in a defined (small)
area. In a seasonal report you know whaat was detected
but you are less confident about what was NOT detected
because of lack of effort.

Many years ago, in the early days of Birdchat, there
was a discussion of setting up a National Checklist
Project.  For given areas birders would be encouraged
to mark which species they detected and did not detect
in a given area.  The check-list would include a
self-determintation of birding level (primarily to use
in assessing the quality of the negative data) as well
as a determination of effort.  It would differ from
Wisconsin's excellent program in that the study areas
would be smaller (although they could be aggregated to
the county level).  This differs from ebird in that it
emphasizes where the birds are NOT (negative data)
almost as much as where they are.  

While not a substitute for formal surveys (playback,
etc) it does go a ways toward filling in some of the
gaps in seasonal records that Jim mentions.



=====
Jeff Price
Boulder, CO
jtpbirder@yahoo.com

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