Author: Chris Elphick

With the end of the year comes the end of Early Winter data collection for the atlas.  There’s still a little time, for owls at least, but now it’s just a matter of sharing any lingering eBird checklists or mailing in data forms so that we can wrap things up for that, penultimate, portion of the project.

Two months ago, we still had lots of gaping holes in our attempt to get a decent number of surveys in every block. Thanks to the great efforts of many people, and the truly exceptional efforts of a distinct few, we’ve managed to fill most of those gaps and will end the atlas with a impressive statewide sampling of Connecticut’s early winter birds.

Now, we need to do the same for the late winter. Continue reading “Two months of atlas field work left”

(Note, this post repeats information recently published in the COA Bulletin, but the maps have been updated.)

As year’s end approaches, we are almost half-way through the final winter of data collection for the Connecticut Bird Atlas. This means that there are only two more weeks in which to add data for the early winter period. Coverage for this period has improved greatly, and many blocks have now reached the target of 10 survey hours between 1 November and 31 December:

Survey coverage during the early winter period (Nov-Dec) for the Connecticut Bird Atlas. Blocks are considered complete once they have received 10 hours of survey effort.

There are still plenty of  blocks that are far from this target, however; especially in the northeastern corner of the state, central-western and far southwest Connecticut, and scattered places throughout the state’s interior. The highest priority blocks are those that have received less than 3 hours of surveys, with those with less than an hour (often zero) especially likely to benefit from even a short visit (click here for a larger version of the map):

Blocks that have received less than 3 hours of surveying during the early winter period (Nov-Dec) are the highest priority for visits before the new year.

With Christmas Counts and the holidays about to begin (and lapwings and grey geese to chase), it’s a busy time, but if you can spare a few hours to visit one of these high priority blocks, it will really help us wrap up the early winter work.