On Wed, 2 Aug 1995 kraig at wln.com wrote:
> I've been hearing plenty of chat about atlasing on OBOL over this
> (nearly) past breeding season. What's the status of atlasing in WA?
> Where do we send observations? I've perused Michael Smith's atlas
> pages on the Web; it seems like it would be lots of fun to add a few
> colored squares to them.

Hi tweets, as holder of the BBA data, allow me to respond. The status of
Washington's BBA is really up in the air at the moment. A large amount
of data has been collected (over 100,000 records so far), yet when mapped
it shows tremendous inadequacies regarding statewide coverage. For many
common species, few atlas blocks are recorded, and for many large areas,
*no* atlas data is available. There are several reasons for this,

Outside of the Puget Trough, Washington is sparsely populated, and many
areas are remote and rugged, making atlassing difficult. Let's face it,
for most people birding is a hobby, and hobbies should be fun. Many
birders don't enjoy walking more than a few miles from their cars. Much
of Washington would require longer backpacking trips, and some areas
would need mountaineering teams!

The scale of the project is probably too ambitious for the number of
dedicated birders in our area. Though Township/Range/Quad is a useful
level of resolution, it results in over 8000 atlas blocks for
Washington. Gene Hunn told me he figured he could do the whole state by
himself if he did nothing else. He'll have it done for us when he turns
80! The point being, 8000 blocks is a tremendous amount of work.

Many people who do bird in the summer could easily record their findings
on atlas cards, but don't. Why? I don't know.

Anyway, the result is that the Puget Trough, Spokane, and other cities
have good coverage, as do most popular spring/summer birding areas:
Wenas Creek, Potholes, Okanogan Valley, etc. A big surprise is the lack
of atlassing done at Grays Harbor (I suppose without shorebirds nobody
goes there?). The Olympic Peninsula is a black hole for BBA data. Other
areas with little data include the northeastern counties at higher
elevations (get out of the car and walk!) - Ferry, Stevens, Pend Oreille,
the Blue Mts. and Palouse are also lacking.

Gene Hunn has initiated a new approach -county by county - starting with
King Co. This is how California does things. From him, I hear the King
Co. atlas will be out this Fall/Winter. Maybe he could share more with
us. Hal Opperman wants to initiate a Kittitas atlas project next.

-------------
Michael R. Smith
Univ. of Washington, Seattle
whimbrel at u.washington.edu
http://salmo.cqs.washington.edu/~wagap/mike.html