birding-aus

the Great Backyard Bird Count

To: Denise Goodfellow <>
Subject: the Great Backyard Bird Count
From: Eric Jeffrey <>
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 06:59:12 -0500
Denise

Simply google Christmas bird count the go to the National Audubon society 
history, which discusses how Frank Chapman led the use of the CBC as am 
alternative to the side hunt. 

Eric Jeffrey 
Falls Church VA
USA

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 17, 2014, at 12:55 AM, Denise Goodfellow <> 
> wrote:
> 
> Gary, do you have a reference for this information?  I'd never heard of the
> "side hunt".
> 
> Regards
> Denise Lawungkurr Goodfellow
> PO Box 71,  Darwin River,
> NT 0841
> 043 8650 835
> 
> PhD candidate, SCU
> Vice-chair, Wildlife Tourism Australia
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On 17/2/14 7:05 AM, "Gary Davidson" <> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi Philip,
>> I don't know for certain why the GBBC is done in late winter, (in North
>> America), but I suspect that you're right in saying it is an attempt to
>> monitor resident birds exclusive of the neo-tropical migrants that arrive 
>> from
>> Central and South America in April and May. The GBBC was conducted for 
>> several
>> years in North America only, before it was expanded to include other parts of
>> the world. I do know, however, the origin of the Christmas Bird Count (CBC).
>> In the late 1800's there was a tradition of the "side hunt" on Christmas Day.
>> The idea was to go for a walk in the afternoon and shoot as many birds and
>> small mammals as you could! The CBC was proposed as an alternative in New 
>> York
>> in 1900. It has grown from that one group in New York over 100 years ago to
>> the tradition it is today. 60 000+ people participated in 2013.
>> In the breeding season the North American equivalent is the Breeding Bird
>> Survey (BBS) program. This is less publicised because it requires 
>> participants
>> to be able to identify birds by song. So casual birders, cannot participate.
>> Gary Davidson
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Sunday, February 16, 2014 9:05:24 AM, Philip Veerman 
>> <>
>> wrote:
>> 
>> There appears to be a tradition both in Europe and USA of doing annual
>> Northern Hemisphere bird counts in (the middle of) winter or as a christmas
>> day count. And publishing these results. It perplexes me too as to why they
>> do that then. Maybe because it is easier without all the (more difficult to
>> identify) migrants such as the warblers, that would be present in their
>> summer. Maybe they are interested in tracking the population changes of
>> resident species.
>> 
>> Philip
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From:
>> Birding-Aus  On Behalf Of
>> Laurie Knight
>> Sent: Sunday, 16 February 2014 3:22 PM
>> To: 
>> Subject: [Birding-Aus] No submissions from Darwin,Broome or the bulk of the
>> outback for the Great Backyard Bird Count
>> 
>> 
>> So far about 31,000 checklists have been submitted today.  (I put in 
>> two for my neighbourhood).  If you look at the map
>> (http://ebird.org/ebird/gbbc/livesubs?siteLanguage=en
>>   ), you can see the checklists being submitted in real time - 
>> obviously a lot coming in from the USA.  There is fairly good coverage 
>> of NZ and southern India, but outback Aus observations are few and far 
>> between.
>> 
>> The number of species reported is currently 2713, so they are a
>> fair  
>> bit behind last year's total of 4258 species.  I suspect there are 
>> over 200 Australian species that could easily be added to the list by 
>> people who have been out this weekend (any pelagics?)
>> 
>> The one question I have is why did the Audubon society choose February 
>> (the depths of winter in the northern hemisphere) for its annual 
>> birdcount?  Perhaps they were hoping for strong participation rates 
>> from southern observers?
>> 
>> Regards, Laurie.
>> 
>> 
>>> On 13/02/2014, at 6:19 PM, Laurie Knight wrote:
>>> 
>>> The Great Backyard Bird Count is Feb. 14-17.  According to the
>>> following article, birders in 100 countries will be participating ...
>>> http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/02/11/global-backyard-b
>>> ird-count/5233847/
>>> 
>>> The deal is that participants do 15+ min bird list for a geographic
>> location and load their sightings on  www.birdcount.org
>>> 
>>> Regards, Laurie.
>> 
>> 
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