Tweeters and Vancouver Birders,

I have to agree with Dennis Paulson's comments on one point: in
Christmas Bird Counts, too much effort is put into counting rare
birds, and not enough into counting the common birds.

Case in point: On the Vancouver, BC CBC, the most abundant species is
normally European Starling. These are most easily counted when they
leave or arrive at their nocturnal roosts in the city of Vancouver. In
fact, during the daytime, many or most of them are feeding outside the
count circle, in pastures in the Fraser Delta.

During the 18 years that I organized the Vancouver CBC, I made a point
of ensuring that Starling roosts were counted-- usually by me and one
or two other observers. (It's a dirty job, but somebody had to do it!)
However, since I last organized that count in 1993, it appears that no
one has covered Starling roosts. Although the counts of most species
at Vancouver are done carefully, and appear to be reasonable
considering the coverage, the counts of Starlings in recent years are
totally meaningless. The fact is that somewhere between 30% and 50% of
all birds present in the count circle are being missed, because no one
can be bothered to count them!

I realize that organizing a large Christmas Bird Count takes a
terrific amount of effort (I did it for 18 years), but a little extra
effort to make sure that the most abundant species is properly counted
would be well worthwhile.

A cautionary note to any other Christmas Bird Count compilers who have
communal roosts of birds (e.g. Starlings, crows, gulls) within their
count circle-- if you are not making sure that these roosts are
counted, you are not doing a thorough job on the Christmas Bird Count!

Wayne C. Weber
Kamloops and Delta, BC
contopus at home.com


----- Original Message -----
From: Netta Smith <nettasmith at home.com>
To: <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2001 7:58 PM
Subject: Great Backyard (Rare) Bird Count


> Hello tweets.
>
< snip >

>
> But birding has come to this. The Christmas Bird Counts, first
started to
> do the same thing (record population changes in common birds), have
become
> extremely competitive, with a lot of energy put into finding as many
rare
> species as possible to get that species list up. I can't help but
think
> this could be at the expense of carefully counting common birds. I
don't
> speak theoretically. I went on the Cocoa, Florida, count waaayyy
back in
> the 50s when I lived in Florida, and the compiler made no bones of
wanting
> us to go out and find every species we could so that count would
keep its #1
> position in species tallied. It *was* at the expense of counting
the birds,
> and I would say CBCs have only become more competitive since then.
>
>
> Dennis Paulson
> --
> Netta Smith and Dennis Paulson
> 1724 NE 98 St.
> Seattle, WA 98115
>