I want to recommend an article in the recent North American Birds (Vol. 61: No 3). The article is The Changing Seasons: Signs? written by Edward Brinkley.

I have always been amazed at colleagues/friends/associates who, despite a background in science, still have no understanding what field ornithologists do, and why it matters, and end up assimilating them with sports fans and use the word fanatic to describe people who track the comings and goings of birds.

Brinkley, the author, has been somewhat dedicated in his reading of the data from North American Birds and uses this data to start to construct a coherent picture of birds demonstrating the changes in the weather.

He acknowledges that statistically there is nothing to be concluded. Too few samples from too much terrain. But the picture still gets formed. I had a statistics professor at San Jose State tell me that Christmas Count records are worthless. I think he is wrong but I can't prove it in a statistical way. I know that the records are worthwhile. (They make up in quantity what they lack in statistical rigor?).

I find this article valuable. It is the result of a great deal of reading of a lot of data gathered by a lot of people. I plan to have copies made so I can provide them to folks who can't see the science for the birds.

Jim Rosso
Arlington, Virgnia
703-534-6026
http://www.birdcentral.net
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