Well, we have been buried (literally and figuratively) since the conclusion of BINAC's You're A Peon Vacation, partially because we are diligently preparing for the upcoming Christmas Bird Count season. When we're not out killing feral cats, there's nothing we like more than participating in a good old-fashioned CBC. So we will try to blog on a few counts that we are doing, and give our readers (whether they be experienced counters or CBC virgins) a few tips for making your count day a big success.
One thing that you have to do on your CBC is embrace modern technology...only 4-5 years ago we were still dealing with paper Topo maps, then we moved on to Terraserver and crappy aerial photos, and now we have the "full monty" through the excellent Google Earth. We know that other bloggers have already talked about using Google Earth for CBCs (we seem to recall that Nuthatch posted a nice tutorial last year) so there is no need to reinvent the wheel, but check out Bill Schmoker's site at brdpics.blogspot.com for a nice piece on how to use Google Earth on your CBC.
We're probably too lazy to do the surfing on our own, but if you have a blog with a CBC tutorial, or if you run across a good one on someone else's blog, sent us the link and we'll post them here.
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6 comments:
Wouldn't it be cool if we waited till Dr. Hill's remote sensing audio recorders picked up a double-knock and then we centered a new Christmas count circle at that spot and we saw an Ivory Bill as the first bird of a new Christmas count circle and then we witnessed a cat catch and devour the pecker and we shot it. (The cat not the pecker.) Then we opened up the cat and analysed the stomach contents and proved that he bird actually was an Ivory Bill.
Wouldn't that be cool?
Wouldn't that be cool? No, that wouldn't be cool because the bird might be half of the last nesting pair the cats haven't eaten.
That damn Google Earth, absolutely useless without a broadband connection, a luxury that us rural hillbillies do not have access to and likely won't have access to for many years without blowing several $100s for satellite hookup plus a monthly pound of flesh.
Seems to me we used to do our CBCs by actually going out and looking for birds with binoculars, not surfing on the internet. Did I miss a memo?
Bill Pulliam,
Can you say "Luddite"? I'm sure your just being a crank, but Google Earth is really helping folks find some new habitats they may have overlooked in the past. Is that so bad?
No, that wouldn't be cool because the bird might be half of the last nesting pair the cats haven't eaten.
Ok, but then the other of the nesting pair could be collected and be the basis of a new IBWO collection at Auburn.
Now that would be cool, wouldn't it?
Not luddite, dear. Sour grapes.
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