Subject: Lewiston, ID/Clarkston, WA Christmas Bird Count results
Date: Jan 24 21:38:07 2003
From: Tangren family - tangren.family at verizon.net


>... Despite the general lack of
>numbers, we found 91 species, which was a new high for the count by 5
>species.

Congratulations


....

> Interestingly 19 species were represented by only 1
>individual each.
>

A few years ago we did an analysis of the potential for Christmas
Bird Counts in central California to find more species than they
had historically. I don't remember the exact results, but the chief
indicator of the potential was the ratio of species with only one
or two individuals to the total number of species. The lower the
ratio, the greater the potential to find more species.

I believe there's an explanation for this in the standard ecology
texts dealing with the abundance and scarcity of species.

Although you found the day dismal, you obviously did a good job of
covering the area.

--Jerry <tangren at wsu.edu>