I have enjoyed reading Charlie Muise's reports on his Blount County Big Year in 2005, and now the comparisons with what he is finding this year. I think doing this type of activity is good for birding, and can be very good for learning about distribution across a region. I had intended to try this in Knox County this year, but with a 2.5 month old baby I have found it harder to get out for birding, and have not birded at all in Knox County yet this year! I do hope others will try to do this sort of thing. Why? It's not a point of competition. Even if you are 'competing' with others in your county, it should not be because there's some big prize at the end of the year. Seeing more birds in a certain time does not make you a better birder - though lots of birding does - it just means you have the time to get out there a lot. What do we learn from something like this? While you could estimate the number of birds possible in a given area for a year, it's nice to have some real numbers to go along with that guess. Maybe there's little scientific data from it, but it can give some idea, over the years, of how bird populations and migrations are doing in your county. Another goal is to try to see a certain number of birds in every county in a state. Has any birder seen 100 birds in every Tennessee county? In some states this is promoted by bird clubs, and they have lists on web sites showing how many birds have been seen by individual birders. One bonus from something like this is that you might go out to a county that you otherwise would not, and you might find something really unusual. I remember a story of a Georgia birder who picked a county he may have never been to, but wanted to get some brids there. And he found a Black-headed Grosbeak. It probably would never have been known to have occurred there then if he didn't have that goal. I wish I could get out and work on Knox County this year, but that will have to wait a bit (though I certainly will do plenty of birding around here still!), and I hope to hear of others around the state that try things like this. By the way, I've only seen 206 bird species ever in Knox County. Even if you are the type of birder who is completely turned off by the idea of 'listing', you can probably see that there is some benefit to an activity like this. David Trently, Knoxville, TN =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to sign your messages with first and last name, city (town) and state abbreviation. You are also required to list the count in which the birds you report were seen. The actual date of observation should appear in the first paragraph. _____________________________________________________________ To post to this mailing list, simply send email to: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx _____________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, send email to: tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. ______________________________________________________________ TN-Bird Net is owned by the Tennessee Ornithological Society Neither the society(TOS) nor its moderator(s) endorse the views or opinions expressed by the members of this discussion group. Moderator: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx _____________________________________________________________ Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp _____________________________________________________________