I second Doug's sentiments.
Kevin Lucas
Yakima County, WA
*Qui tacet consentire videtur*
On Thu, May 20, 2021 at 2:15 PM Doug Santoni <
dougsantoni at gmail.com> wrote:
>
As a non-scientist, I just wanted to speak out on behalf of the sentiment
>
expressed by the original poster, and say that the intention of broadening
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our knowledge and trying new birding spots is a worthy endeavor. I think
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all of us in this forum share a love for birds and our natural world!
>
>
Doug Santoni
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Ph 305-962-4226
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DougSantoni at gmail.com
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>
On May 20, 2021, at 1:41 PM, J Christian Kessler <1northraven at gmail.com>
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wrote:
>
>
>
this is to misunderstand the role of hotspots and their use in science.
>
scientists are looking at species over much wider areas than just one or a
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few hotspots. in this context hotspots are non-random sampling points.
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any scientific statement about a species population (occurrence; density)
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for an area would have to take into account the density of hotspots in that
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area, the frequency of reports on each hotspot, along with other habitat &
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and such variables.
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>
hotspots are themselves highly non-random and hence non-scientific. some
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hotspots cover definable areas (like the UBNA) that may include multiple
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discrete habitats, while others are simply geographic coordinates for a
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place birders have found productive. there is from a scientific
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perspective no rhyme or reason to the identification of hotspots as
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individual locations, but as a collective set of data points covering a
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separately identified (by a scientist researching a specific question)
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area, they provide a time-series and wide-area picture of great value.
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>
and a key element of that value is the occurrence of a species by season.
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eBird bar charts are organized for occurrence by week of the year. in the
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end, "flooding" a hotspot only makes inherently non-random data even less
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non-random, which is to say statistically biased in hard to determine
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ways. starting a new hotspot in an area with few of them could, on the
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other hand, be beneficial to the comprehensive data set.
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>
Chris Kessler,
>
Seattle
>
>
On Thu, May 20, 2021 at 11:29 AM Joey McCracken <joemccracken3 at gmail.com>
>
wrote:
>
>>
Hi everyone, I've got an idea for those on eBird. What if we were to find
>>
an eBird Hotspot in the area with not too many checklists or species and
>>
then for the next week we try and get as many species as possible for that
>>
location and we will change the location every week. We could really fill
>>
in some missing data and maybe find some rarities in places that are not
>>
well birded. It's just an idea for now but if you all want to do it maybe
>>
we can start at Brierwood Park <https://ebird.org/hotspot/L7009887> just
>>
south of Alderwood. Happy birding!
>>
-Joey McCracken
>>
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>
>
--
>
"moderation in everything, including moderation"
>
Rustin Thompson
>
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