Thanks Eric and Gary
I've got quite a lot of this info for my PhD study of American birders, but
had not heard of the "side hunt".
Regards
Denise
On 17/2/14 9:29 PM, "Eric Jeffrey" <> wrote:
> 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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>>
>>
>>
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