No one is necessarily trying to create a balanced or fair playing field here.
The point of this challenge is to generate more interest in birding close to
home more regularly and to get the checklists from these activities entered
into eBird. There is the obvious benefit of lowering our collective carbon
footprint and more importantly creating a better understanding of how birds use
landscapes close to where we live.
One of the ways that the playing field is sort of balanced is through comparing
the number of species found within each 5MR circle to the year end list of all
species eBirded in the county where the circle is centered. For instance, in
most years somewhere about 220 species are found and reported to eBird in
Washington Co. (where I live). The fact that Steve Nord now lives in Arizona
will surely take that down a bit. If Shawneen and I can tally say 160 species
in our circle–should be doable given that our life list for the patch is in the
low 160's without any concerted effort to bird it regularly–we would in effect
see about 73% of all the species seen in the county during a year. Let's say
Phil Pickering chooses to play within his exceptionally juicy slice of the
Lincoln County Coast. He is going up against up against a base of about 265
species (on average) reported in Lincoln County each year. To match our
percentage he would have to see 193 species in his patch alone, a tally that
would land in the top 5-8 county year lists (for the entire county) in all of
the last half dozen years or so.
Lane County patch birders are at a decided disadvantage on multiple fronts. One
you have a huge county with diverse habitats extending from the outer coast to
the crest of the Cascades. Secondly, in recent years slightly over 300 species
per year have been reported to eBird in the county. I can't imagine where one
might center a patch where one might even see two-thirds of that total. Given
that most of the county's birders live in and around Eugene, your patchers will
not take in either the high mountains or the coast. The best bet would be to
live somewhere close enough to Fern Ridge where both the dam and the end of
Royal Ave. are inside your patch (along with all the open country and woodlands
in between), but I don't know of any birder whose home is so situated. Mark
Nikas' maybe?
I think the mostly lowland counties along the western edge of the Willamette
Valley and butting up against the foothills of the Coast Range (Washington,
Yamhill, Polk, and Benton) offer the best chances to rack up a patch total that
is 75+% of the county total for the year. Of the coast counties, Lincoln is
probably the best, because there are lots of good seawtaching vantage points, a
narrow outer coastal plain (open country birds that are easy in other coastal
counties are tough there), and comparatively low section of the Coast Range, so
there aren't a suite of inland higher elevation birds that are easy to get.
Obviously there are a bunch of counties east of Cascades where birding a patch
could yield a high percentage of the total for the county, especially those
counties where few venture to go birding.
It's mostly a fun game just to see what we can dig up on our local turf. On day
one Shawneen and I saw an American Bittern and two Canvasbacks on the lake at
Koll Center Wetlands. This site is less than a mile from our house and we bird
it all the time and yet both of these species were lifers for the site for us.
We also found at least two Swamp Sparrows in Greenway Park just south of the
main lake. I have only seen Swamp Sparrow there one other time. There is
obviously a direct correlation between effort and the total number of species
one might detect over time in a specific area. That combined with the fact that
several other really talented birders (like Craig Tumer, Jay Withgott, and
Dwight Porter to name a few) have patch circles that overlap ours. We will
benefit from their efforts and they will surely get some species that we find
inside their 5-mile radius patches. I fully expect that we will team up to find
some really interesting birds over the next 12 months and learn more about the
common birds that live in our midst.
Dave Irons
Beaverton, OR
________________________________
From: obol-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <obol-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf of Alan
Contreras <acontrer56@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, January 2, 2019 6:52 PM
To: philliplc@xxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [obol] Re: January 1st 5-MR patch birds including 5 species of Heron
at Koll
The outer coast is a special case, though Vjera would have most of Fern Ridge
Reservoir, not a bad chunk of water.
Among we mere mortals, I have Spencer Butte, Skinner Butte, Meadowlark Prairie,
Delta Ponds, Willow Creek wetlands and, just barely, the Cantrell Slime. Being
at Malheur as HQ docent for seven weeks this spring might cramp my Lane list a
little, but it will have compensations. :-)
Alan Contreras
acontrer56@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:acontrer56@xxxxxxxxx>
Eugene, Oregon
www.alanlcontreras.com<http://www.alanlcontreras.com>
http://osupress.oregonstate.edu/book/edge-of-awe
On Jan 2, 2019, at 10:41 AM,
philliplc@xxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:philliplc@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
My radius would pretty much be a truncated version
of the Lincoln City CBC circle. It would include
not only the ocean and all of Lincoln City south of
Roads End, but also all of Devil's Lake, all of Siletz
Bay including the Salishan nature trail, as well as
numerous accessible clear cuts in the lower coast
range. Sort of a stacked deck.
Phil
An interesting idea. Living in southwest
Eugene my radius might be pretty good.
