We have all been there. I was set for a birding trip on Sunday to add a few birds at the "sloughs" to my Kentucky list. My daughter didn't have a tennis tournament, my work projects were finally under control, and I thought my wife had told me we didn't have a social engagement. Wrong! I had (forgotten, that is) a lunch appointment with my parents which meant that I would have to postpone the trip. As I thought about my missed opportunities (Snow & Greater White-fronted Goose & Redhead--which would have taken me past 45% for KY), something Bill Pulliam said in a recent email got me thinking. I am a social epidemiologist by profession interested in the causes of morbidity and mortality (with research/publications mainly in the area of infant mortality, homicide & suicide) and in addition to other kinds of research methods, I have done "areal" or "ecological" studies in which aggregates or groups such as states and counties are the things we study (if someone says that poverty rates cause rates of homicide that is an ecological study--but don't believe it!). Thus, numbers involving states, provinces and North American regions are of interest to me, and as I ruminated on my missed KY trip it dawned on me that I had three assumptions in my head about birding that could be empirically tested with available data: 1. there aren't many TN birders who report Total Ticks (where you list the total species seen in states (but not HI), Canadian provinces, DC & St.-Pierre & Miquelon, France), 2. the distribution of Total Ticks birders by state/province is equivalent to that of the ABA Area list (mainly all species in North America north of Mexico), i.e., states/provinces that have lots of birders on the ABA Area list will also have a similar proportional amount of birders on the Total Ticks list, and 3. the number of Tennessee birders is lower than other states/provinces on the ABA Area list. It turns out that all of these assumption were incorrect. STATES/PROVINCES BY REPORTING TOTAL TICKS BIRDERS Not only are TN total tickers not relatively uncommon, but TN is in the top 10 states/provinces on Total Ticks, tied for the 8th rank (in some notation systems this would be rank 3, see table below). Indeed, only two states, Michigan and Washington, have more Total Ticks birders than TN: 1. Michigan (9 birders) 2. Washington (7) 8.-tied TENNESSEE (6) 8.-t California (6) 8.-t Maryland (6) 8.-t New Jersey (6) 8.-t South Carolina (6) 8.-t Texas (6) 10.-t Colorado (5) 10.-t Massachusetts (5) (At the bottom, 14 states had no birders, AR = 2, AZ = 1, FL = 2, NH = 2, IA = 2, MT = 1, NE = 2, NM = 2, NC = 1, VT = 2, WV = 1.) Note, that the Total Ticks champion for TN is David Chaffin with 10,248 birds (a rank of 8 for all total tickers, N = 125), followed by Rick Waldrop with 7,255 (rank of 28). The reporting threshold is 4,000 birds. STATES/PROVINCES BY REPORTING ABA AREA BIRDERS While not in the top 10, TN ranks a high 14 in the ABA Area list: 1. California (89 birders) 2. Texas (77) 3. Florida (54) 5.-t Massachusetts (41) 5.-t Michigan (41) 7. Maryland (37) 8. Arizona (36) 9. Colorado (35) 10. New Jersey (33) 11. North Carolina (26) 12. New York (25) 14.-t TENNESSEE (24) 14.-t Pennsylvania (24) (Among other areas, DC = 3 birders, KY = 2, MS = 3, SD = 0, WV = 2, WY = 3.) The TN champion here is Benton Basham with 862 birds (rank of 2 of all reporting, N = 976), followed by David Chaffin at 798 (rank of 32). The reporting threshold is 500 birds. SIMILARITY BETWEEN TOTAL TICKS AND ABA AREA DISTRIBUTIONS Note, that while there is a significant positive correlation between Total Ticks and ABA Area by state/province, there are important exceptions: Florida (rank 3 in the ABA Area), Arizona (8) and North Carolina (11) all place poorly in Total Ticks. These result seem to suggest that total ticking is less common in the states that are major birding destinations. TENNESSEE IN THE REGION Beyond the U.S. and Canada as a whole, there is additional regional information that is of interest to TN birders. The U.S. Census has nine regional categories of which TN is in the "East South Central," composed also of AL, KY & MS. TN leads these other states in both Total Ticks and the ABA Area list. Finally, if we include all of the southern census regions (South Atlantic, East South Central & West South Central, a total of 14 states), TN leads Total Ticks along with SC and TX, and comes in a strong 4th in the ABA Area following TX, FL & NC. Of course, over time the rank ordering of these states/provinces may change (more likely with the Total Ticks distribution because of the overall low number of total tickers and how closely spaced the different states are), but for now the results for TN birders are very positive indeed compared to other states/provinces. Kevin Breault Brentwood, TN Note: these data come from the "2005 ABA Big Day Report & ABA List Report". The 2006 reports should be available from the ABA in June, 2007. =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to SIGN YOUR MESSAGE with first and last name, CITY (TOWN) and state abbreviation. You are also required to list the COUNTY in which the birds you report were seen. 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Moderator: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ------------------------------ Assistant Moderator Andy Jones Cleveland, OH ------------------------------- Assistant Moderator Dave Worley Rosedale, VA __________________________________________________________ Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ARCHIVES TN-Bird Net Archives at //www.freelists.org/archives/tn-bird/ EXCELLENT MAP RESOURCES Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp Tenn.Counties Map at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/states/tennessee3.gif Aerial photos to complement google maps http://local.live.com _____________________________________________________________