Interesting ideas from Louisiana birders.
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: John Dillon <kisforkryptonite@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 4:07 PM
Subject: [LABIRD-L] Bored, desperate, and fidgety? Try this!!
To: <LABIRD-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Birders,
Notice a slight increase in LABIRD posts the last couple weeks?? It’s
because there’s a decrease in eBird lists from the usual places we all go
in spring!
So, hey. We’re all birding our yards and neighborhoods and abandoned strip
malls now, right? And look at the increase in conversation it’s started on
LABIRD and in various social media groups. We’re all learning to slow down
and bird literally in our own backyards, probably more than any of us ever
have.
Then let’s all make the most of it! RIGHT NOW, email Donna Dittmann at
donnaldittmann@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:donnaldittmann@xxxxxxxxx> and tell her
you’d like to register (at no cost) to be part of the LOS Virtual Spring
Weekend! Once you do, she’ll email you a spreadsheet to complete during
the weekend to return to her. The spreadsheets will give us a total on all
the weekend’s birds documented in our yards throughout the state.
But wait! There’s more! Friday and Saturday will be our two “Yard Big
Days.” Bird all over your yard to compete against other sad, isolationist
birders, but also to be part of the total birds reported from the weekend.
Sunday will be a “Big Sit” - still in your yard, but you basically have to
stay inside a 100-ft radius circle (think quarantine inside quarantine but
with birds!).
And prizes! Ohhhhh, the prizes!! First prize is a million dollars! NO!
That’s ridiculous! Instead, LOS will be awarding several very official
certificates in various surprise categories. In addition to the surprise
awards, we’ll also be recognizing any winners who guess (or come closest to
guessing) to the total number of species recorded statewide during the
weekend.
Throughout the weekend, we strongly encourage you to post photos and videos
to the LOS Facebook page of your yard birding. And I will attempt my first
Facebook Live stream (place bets now on what a colossal failure that will
be).
So, update your eBird apps! Clean the dust off your binoculars! And find
your comfiest lawn chair!
Email Donna NOW and please read through all the other gory details from
Steve Cardiff’s original LOS Virtual Birding Weekend LABIRD post I’d copied
below.
John Dillon
LOS President
Athens, LA
_______________
Dear LOS Members and Louisiana birders-
With the traditional Louisiana Ornithological Society Spring Meeting
cancelled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the LOS Officers, Board,
and Editors would like to propose a substitute event that we hope can at
least provide Louisiana birders with a fun distraction during the statewide
lockdown. The LOS 2020 “virtual” spring birding weekend will take place
statewide during Friday-Sunday, 24-26 April. We heartily encourage all
Louisiana birders to participate. Tentative rules are as follows:
--In the spirit of our state’s “stay at home order” and “social distancing”
guidelines, birders are urged to keep track of and report the *birds they
see or hear ONLY on or from their “home*.” Home = your place of residence,
which could include anything from an urban apartment to suburban yards to
larger rural tracts. It’s OK to bird the right-of-away or street adjacent
to your own property, and urban or apartment dwellers can count birds in
“common areas.”
--Birders can take part during any or all of the three days.
--The primary objective of this event is to have fun and to help keep
birders engaged in Louisiana birding during the pandemic. But, just to
make things a little more interesting, some competitive options will be as
follows:
--A “Yard Big Day” competition on Friday and Saturday will
generally follow ABA Big Day rules (see link:
https://www.aba.org/aba-big-day-count-rules/ ;<
https://www.aba.org/aba-big-day-count-rules/>, but no vehicles are allowed,
and a team may consist of one person). Minimum time investment will be one
continuous hour of observation. Birding can take place over a 24-hour
period midnight-to-midnight; multiple lists/day are OK but keep separate
track of nocturnal vs. diurnal birding *a la* eBird protocols (see link
below). Using eBird is encouraged but is not a requirement.
--A “Stationary Count” or “Big Sit“ on Sunday will use eBird’s
stationary count format –
https://support.ebird.org/en/support/solutions/articles/48000950859-guide-to-ebird-protocols#anchorStationary
<
https://support.ebird.org/en/support/solutions/articles/48000950859-guide-to-ebird-protocols#anchorStationary
So,
