2012 Effort Recommendations - BC Breeding Bird Atlas

Updated - 31-May-2012

Following is a summary of recommended squares to finish off in 2012 for the British Columbia Breeding Bird Atlas in Region 1 Southern Trench.

Please contact me or Greg Ross if you are planning on doing any atlassing in the Region. You can dig up our emails off the Breeding Bird Atlas website (or respond to this email if you are receiving this through your BBA email).

This table can also be viewed on Google Docs at:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e3fMdjetixnnRpctAUbvp7ZO9wRTh29N6tqzKZ2TQ7Q/edit

You can just Google the square number to get to the existing BBA data.

PS - I have not submitted this to Christopher yet, hehe, so there may be some edits to this. I will let you know if there are. ^ ~ ^

Region 1 Breeding Bird Atlas
2012 Square Recommendations – prepared  by Dianne Cooper

Square	Name	PC / BE to Go	Comment	Priority	Atlasser as of 11 Mar 2012
11NQ76	Moyie Range North	3 / 3	High priority	2
11NQ77	Lumberton Mid / Negro Lake	10 / 4	High priority	4
11NQ86	Moyie Lake North	10 / 6	Easy one	4	Patrick S.
11NQ87	Hidden Valley	9 / 0	13 hrs BE done, high priority	5
11NQ89	Cranbrook Airport	4 / 0	24 hrs BE done	5	Dianne C.
11NR75	Findlay Creek FSR Mid E	9 / 0	20 hrs BE done	3
11NR80	LD Ranch Rd	8 / 6	High priority	5	Done
11NR82	Moen Rd	1 / 0	17 hrs BE done	5	Dianne C.
11NR83	Larchwood Lake	10 / 10	Easy one	4
11NR85	Canal Flats	7 / 5	High priority	5
11NR90	Bummer's Flats	8 / 0	27 hrs BE done	5	Done
11NR92	Skookumchuck Prairie	4 / 6	High priority	5	Dianne C.
11PQ04	Cherry Lake	4 / 5		1	Greg & D. C.
11PQ16	Colvalli Road	5 / 6	High priority	2
11PQ17	Wardner	7 / 0	13 hrs BE done	5	Done
11PQ18	Bull River	10 / 8		5	(Greg R.)
11PQ24	Englishman Creek Newgate	10 / 4	High priority	5	Dean N.
11PQ34	Dorr Cut Off Road	10 / 0	14 hrs BE done	5
11PQ35	Baynes Lake East	10 / 10	Easy one	5	Dean N.
11PQ49	Fernie E	5 / 0	29 hrs BE done	3	Kevin K.
11QQ13	Kishinena Peak	6 / 4		1
11PR50	Michel - Olson	10 / 6		2
11PR51	Sparwood	10 / 10			Kevin K.
11PR54	Fording R Rd S	10 / 0	10 hrs BE done	3
11PR60	McGillivray	10 / 8		4

Here is what has been done so far, and what could still be done.

Dark red = Breeding Evidence done to 10 hour-standard.

Diagonal lines = Point Counts done to 10 pc-standard

Light red = some Breeding Evidence done

Green square = recommend we finish these off

Yellow flower = easily accessible square begging attention.

You may access these on my flickr - links below - where you can download (warning - large file), or at least view "original" size, to zoom in. Resolution should be good enough for you to see place names.

Block NQ http://www.flickr.com/photos/kestrelm/6972955615/

Block NR http://www.flickr.com/photos/kestrelm/6826841756/

Block PQ http://www.flickr.com/photos/kestrelm/6972960515/

Block PR http://www.flickr.com/photos/kestrelm/6972962631/

Thank you so much! - to everyone who has contributed to this provincial effort. Did you have some adventures - like me? Wasn't it fun! - snooping around with a purpose. Did you learn some new birdsong?

And more importantly, do you feel the satisfaction in knowing you have contributed to the knowledge and awareness of not only avian distribution but also to our stewardship of Gaia (my word for the terran bioshere) through whatever this data is going to be used for in the future?

Happy atlassing!

Atlassers to 2012

G. Ross atlassing at newly discovered Bank Swallow Colony

The British Columbia Breeding Bird Atlas is on its last year this year – 2012 – wow. I doubt I will be around for the next one.

I know we have to be motivated by our own satisfaction mostly (fun, thrill-seeking bunch that we are),  but I am sure our efforts are greatly appreciated by the organizers, the birds, and Gaia –  the biosphere.

Region 1 – Southern Trench – Atlassers

Since the BCBBA website lists the top 10 contributors (and their intrepid assistants) to date for the province, I thought I would mention some of the atlassers in our area  – Region 1: Southern Trench – and send them a BIG THX!

# atlassers registered		65
# of point counters		10
top point counter		Kevin Knight, Fernie, BC – 165
honourable mentions,  +70 counts		D. Nicholson, D. Cooper, C. Di Corrado
# of breeding evidence (BE) counters		51
top BE counter		Dianne Cooper (moi) – 66 forms
top 10 BE counters		D. Nicholson, K. Knight, K. Stuart-Smith, C. Di Corrado, J. Fenneman, G. Ross, A. Bartels, M. Machmer, P. Ohanjanian
farthest travelling to atlass		from Corvallis, Oregon

Thank you in different ways to our local atlassers, also to those who have gone out of their home regions to snoop on the birds and contribute, and, of course, to the organizers and data crunchers, and inspirers.  I hope you have another great year atlassing.

Brief Superficial Regional Comparison

As far as comparing atlassing efforts by region, I am happy to see two non-“Lower Mainland” regions in the “Top 5” for hours spent atlassing: the Peace Region and the West Kootenay Region.

It is a very large province with a tendency toward “Lower Mainland”-centricity, as far as humans are concerned.  The Peace, of course, being on the other side of the Rockies, is the place to document eastern species in our political area – a coveted dream for many birders, especially listers. The seabirds and shorebirds of the Coast are indeed wonderful; as are the incursion of southern species into the Okanagan and beyond.

Species-wise – the region with the highest number of species (according to the online data summaries) is the Chilcotin – with 213 – and the lowest is Haida Gwaii – with 83 species.

The Southern Trench ranks 8^th in number of species and 13^th in number of hours. Way to Go! Yay!

K. Knight, #1 point counter in typical higher elevation habitat for our region.

Upcoming blog posts will show you with maps jpeg’s where you can go to atlass most effectively in the Southern Trench. ^_^

Happy birding!

Ignoring Chirps

Most of the time I tend to ignore those little chirps I don't know. I often just don't have the time to hunt down the bird, or am with friends who are 'day-listers' or 'site-flippers' (like channel-flippers watching TV - on to the next).

But these little guys' mother chirped behind me several times so loud and so close she broke my concentration. I turned around and re-focused my aging eyeballs to 'near field' just in time to see her pop onto her nest 1 meter from my face in a thick saskatoon bush.

Good luck, little Yellow Warblers!

Northern Saw-whet Owl Nests

With owl survey data in hand, three of us set off to find some owl nests; then connect with a couple of Atlassers (Breeding Bird Atlas) over in Fernie to plan this year's effort.

What a blinking blizzard it was for weather (insert more expletives here).

Sue did a terrific job, as usual, watching the mileage and Greg was excellent at scratching likely-looking snags with a stick to sound like a predator.

We were able to find 2 NORTHERN SAW-WHET OWL nests! Yay! How can we not help thinking we're so good at this. They are so cute! Poking their heads out, with indignant expressions from the disturbance.

A nice walk-about along the scrubby mixed forest adjacent to Peckham's Lake revealed several possible BLACK-BILLED MAGPIE nests (but no long ears sticking up above the sticks).

After a satisfactory pause at the pub in celebration, we carried on to Fernie in search of a Great-horned Owl nest rumored to be in Hosmer. More blizzard and bitter bitter wind. Guided by Kevin, Bob, and Henry the german sheppard, we turned up only a PILEATED WOODPECKER male likely just roosting in a hole in a tree on the banks of the Elk River; and a couple of GOLDEN EAGLE adults against the snow-covered mountains.

All along the way, we noticed flocks of dozens of AMERICAN ROBIN - the migration has begun again after being stalled by nature's flashback of winter.

Breeding Bird Atlas Report March 2010

2010 marks the third year of the five-year data-gathering effort for the British Columbia Breeding Bird Atlas.

Two years worth of data have brought us some very interesting discoveries and maintained what we here in the Southern Rocky Mountain Trench already knew - that this is the best and prettiest place in BC to live and bird.

189 species have been documented in our region!

169 of these are definitely or strongly suspected to be breeding here.

This is compared to the 254 species that breed, migrate, or occasionally fall out of the sky into our area.

Certain species documented at last
The great news is that some very wonderful species have been breeding in our area including:

Barred Owl, Northern Saw-whet Owl, Williamson's Sapsucker, Lark Sparrow, Common Grackle and possibly American Avocet.

K. K. of Fernie was the first to bring to provincial attention that the COMMON GRACKLE have invaded the southeast corner of our province and have been here for years.

The LARK SPARROW was known to be in the Skookumchuck area for some years. Last year, P.D. and G.R. stumbled upon one of these nests in a very dreary but obvious place. Two weeks later, the eggs were pipped (as confirmed by yours truly) and later in the season, the young were seen with their family. Yay!

The furthest southeast corner of our province has given up a very nice record of an AMERICAN PIPIT carrying food as recorded by a researcher from Alberta.

Our region's progress
How are we doing?

Well, compared to the other 40 regions, not bad for having only 11 regularly active atlassers. Mind you each region has a different number of squares. We have over 200 squares. (Squares are based on the Universal Trans Mercator grid and are 10 x 10 kilometers.)

Breeding evidence: we've complete 6 squares (20 hours spent in a square over the 5 years).

Point counts: we've completed 1 square (15 point counts per square).

Squares: we've got some data in 86 squares but no data in over half our squares.

Species: we've recorded 189 species.

Hey, we missed some
Yup, no one has yet documented definite breeding evidence of ROCK PIGEON, BLACK TERN, or VIRGINIA RAIL!

Hopefully, they won't go anywhere (except migration) by the end of the Atlas period so somebody will confirm their breeding.

And other species we might possibly get breeding are: BALTIMORE ORIOLE, MAGNOLIA WARBLER, BOREAL CHICKADEE, BLACK SWIFT, and the ever elusive TURKEY VULTURE.

Carry on, gang
It's a large and diverse province, as we who have travelled anywhere in it know. But, each region is 'known' for something so each has 'priority' squares that would yield the most useful information when considering the whole province. Region 1 Southern Trench has unique mountainous habitats, not often accessed by the non-hiking birder, but there is some road access to some squares.

If you find yourself in any of our 10 priority 1 squares that yet have no data, please be sure to note species, date, location and breeding evidence. Check out the Breeding Bird Atlas of British Columbia or contact me for a list of these squares.

Point counts
Our region has over 200 squares. Each square has a target number of point counts = 15.
Ha ha - that's over 3,000 points.

91 point counts have been done over the previous two years. Only one is considered to have enough point counts.

Have fun! Stay safe! And thanks to all those who have contributed so far!