Counts - your approach to accurate minimum? (1 Viewer)

[Dr. K]

Hello,

I have been birding 'on purpose' for almost a year now. When I started using ebird to record and report checklists I was happy if I could confidently report 1/2 of the birds that I saw. Since then I have become much more proficient at ID by sight and sound, and I certainly hope that I will continue to improve.

One struggle that I've been thinking about is how to reliably count the minimum number of a species when I am still, or when I am moving slow enough that it is possible that a single bird can come around a couple times and make me think that there are more than just the one. This is especially tricky when I feel compelled to record a bird by sound, but then move closer to the area where the sound came from, and see a bird... new bird? same bird?

I figure more experienced birders must have some strategies to avoid overcounting. I would be grateful for any tips.

Thanks.

 

[jmepler]

There are lots of tutorials at eBird.org

There is one on counting at this link.

I tend to count only what I can be reasonable sure is a new bird.

 

[Dr. K]

The details in the link are good, thank you.

I also “tend to count only what I can be reasonable sure is a new bird,” but I thought some with more experience than me might have developed some more rigorous strategies that I could borrow to get better, faster. My day job is in science and education, and I guess I’m a little uncomfortable with much guesswork during any kind of data collection.

 

[Andy Lakin]

Personally I think quite a few people count every bird as a new sighting especially with bird such as raptors, obviously this can quickly result in very skewed numbers. My local patch incldes a large hill with 360 degrees visibility. It's a nightmare counting the raptors as especially with the scope you can see a very long way. I like to think that the totals I report are the minimum and I suspect on good days that some of the totals are quite big underestimates but have to live with this. Also some people tend to assume birds in a flock/ same area are the same species without checking carefully (where possible) and this can make a big difference to numbers of each species and total number of species. I find it very interesting to very carefully count stationery birds to get an accurate count as it is surprising just how easy it is for birds to blend in. At the weekend I was trying to count a small party of Grey Partridges and it was very interesting as I was getting a different count every time as the birds moved slightly and there were some clods of earth that really looked like stationery birds! Unfortunately it's not an exact science!