We are hoping to disseminate the count information both through Migres and our own social media feeds more regularly but when the count information is required by visiting Birders it is also one of the busiest times for both organisations so please do consider that. However we will discuss the feedback and see if there is another way of presenting the information which maybe more useful this coming year.
Thanks
Simon
Thanks Simon.
Just to elaborate what I was getting at in one of the posts I made while I was over there in September, this is the information that was presented last year on a daily basis at Cazalla, covering movement counts from there and Algarrobo on the preceding day.
It is excellent information, well presented, and importantly for the hard-worked staff, easily presented as a pro-forma poster.
It provides not only the individual daily species counts, but it highlights the differences in the numbers of species to be seen at each of the observatories. Algarrobo is undoubtedly better for honeys in volume, but they tend to be flying lower at Cazalla, so better prospects for visiting photographers. Cazalla on the other hand consistently produces the higher numbers of black kites, Egyptian vultures and white storks.
It also highlights the fact that every day is different and weather dependent.
I've posted photos below of 5 days' records to illustrate my point.
The first, 28th August, was a 'Big Day' with huge numbers of all sorts passing through after being bottled up by several days of Levanter. over 20,000 birds through Cazalla, half of them white storks while of the 7,779 birds through Algarrobo there were no white storks at all.
A few days later, 3rd September was another period of Levanter and on this 2nd day of it there was little movement apart from Honey Buzzards, which because they don't seem to give a stuff, just kept on going. 5827 birds through Cazalla, but 73% of them were honeys. More spectacularly, of the 16,313 though Algarrobo 81% were honeys.
6th September was a funny one, more honeys by a large margin at Cazalla than at Algarrobo, but the figures for Algarrobo that day were very low for everything. The monitors there must have been bored out of their skulls. Almost 20,000 birds at Cazalla (66% honeys) and only 1,300 birds at Algarrobo.
Next day, 7th September was very different. 5,864 through Cazalla and 5,105 at Algarrobo. This illustrated the daily variations.
A week later, 13th September, 2998 birds at Cazalla (only 175 honeys), 4676 at Algarrobo (1681 honeys). Two days later the figures were lower again, only 661 birds through Cazalla and 408 at Algarrobo.
The weekly counts published this year are fine, but these daily counts are so much more useful for the visiting birder on the ground.
Alan.