At 04:40 PM 8/7/99 -0700, ian paulsen wrote:
>HI ALL:
> I was at Don Baccus's website and printed out a custom checklist for
>Kitsap Co., WA and I was wondering if this checklist was for CBC's only,
>because it seems to cover only wintering birds? Don are you there?
>Sincerely

Yes, if you go the project home page and ask for the "long" version
explaining the various options, it points out that check lists are
printed based only on data entered into the project. It's easy to
verify that most areas only have CBC data by asking for a checklist
for December, followed by a checklist for January-November. In many
cases the latter list will be empty.

The way to get better and more accurate checklists, including good
seasonal checklists, is to enter better and more data!

Anyone who's registered to post and/or receive e-mail rare bird
alerts is also able to input plain checklist-style birding
reports (i.e. "I saw these species") or count-style birding
reports ("I saw so many individuals of these various species).

You can enter in past data, as well. At the moment, I require
a count date, though, so this restricts date input to those who
either have good past field notes or who would find it fun and
interesting to keep better track in the future. I'd love to
see folks enter past data as they have time, assuming there's
interest.

Speaking of the future, one of my future goals is to figure out
how to import data from people's private lists kept Thayer's
and similar PC listing software.

I also would like to enter USF&W BBS data. I've found the
raw data on the web, it's just a matter of doing some data
massage so that it fits with the data model for birds I'm
using. I'm using the same taxonomic model used for CBC
data, and of course the USF&W BBS data is kept in an
entirely different format and not easily correlated.

Wonderful :(



- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza at pacifier.com>
Nature photos, on-line guides, Pacific Northwest
Rare Bird Alert Service and other goodies at
http://donb.photo.net.