Thanks to David Davis for posting the encouraging note about eBird
(www.eBird.org), which is not only a great place to deposit your sightings for
use in
very important study of bird distribution but is also a fine way to keep track
of your sightings overall -- after entering your birds, you can download a full
list, site by site, of the birds you see every day. It takes only a very few
minutes to do.
It's good to log those redpolls, as David suggests, and if you're in a hurry,
you can indicate to eBird that you're not providing a full list of all birds
seen for the day, just some highlights or selected species (that way, the
database doesn't assume that, say, Fish Crow wasn't seen or heard on a
particular
day).
On most days, for instance, I have no idea how many Herring Gulls I saw, so
even putting down an estimate is difficult, but I have no trouble remembering
something like a redpoll (2 at Riverfront Golf Course in western Portsmouth on
the Nansemond River CBC 01/02/04; 1 at Fort Story in Virginia Beach on
01/03/04) and keeping it in my notes. If you haven't tried eBird yet, set up
an
account (free) and put in the birds you saw, say, at Blandy Experimental Farm
(should be easy to remember!). Then download your data back to your PC (for
Mac
users, this part of the process is not as satisfying, not yet at least).
You'll be amazed at how useful and easy and natural the whole process becomes.
You can also surf around in the database, looking at other folks' sightings
(not by name, just location, date) and making graphs and charts of distribution
and abundance. This is great fun, as you can see what's coming our way this
winter, for instance.
Ned Brinkley
Cape Charles, VA
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