One goal of our LIS (Long Island Sound) Bird Count is to take a measurement (a "snapshot") of the birds and other natural history of LIS as of December 2013, and to document that LIS snapshot as a "baseline" against which future (and past) years can be compared (to help us understand what is changing). Maybe 20, 50, 100 or 500 years from now somebody will find our snapshot useful as they compare their future world to our 2013 world.
So what is the best way to document what we learned about LIS in December 2013 (wanting to convey the most information, without requiring an enormous amount of time and labor)?
A number of us started brainstorming how to document this LIS snapshot:
- Of course there is the one central table of numbers, summarizing all/most of the LIS snapshot.... LIS Bird Count online summary worksheet <<<and I will continue to complete this (it is 95% done).
- plus the 230+ eBird reports which were shared with our dedicated LIS account,
- AND in addition to this numeric data we will need some words, some text to explain our LIS snapshot. We need to create a written report, to complement our purely numeric data, and the following material in blue suggests a possible sector-by-sector structure for that report....
Will this be most useful to a researcher fifty years from now?
Can we agree on some simple but useful framework for our written text report, so we can all input small pieces (maybe a paragraph each) to it as we go along during next December, January and February, rather than waiting until mid-year to write the report, as we are doing this year (and having trouble remembering some of the details from last December)?
Should our report be divided primarily by species/families of birds?
Should our report be divided primarily by geographic sectors (as below, in blue)?
Should our report be so short that it does not need any kind of divisions (the ITALIC ext, far below)?
LONG REPORT:
Here is a proposed geographically-divided structure/framework for us to "hang our observations/comments on", shown below in blue text, as paragraphs of text, where we can describe highlights and give our interpretation of what was significant about our December count of LIS birds.... is this too complicated??...
PROPOSED REPORT ON THE 2013 LONG ISLAND SOUND BIRD COUNT:
(assume one paragraph per item, with volunteers writing one or more of the needed paragraphs)
Overall Summary of the 5-week LIS Bird Count (Dec1,2013 thru Jan5,2014)
- Bird summary, including notable rarities, trends, mid-sound birds, etc.
- What do seabirds EAT? Note any observations which were reported on this topic of interest.
- Summary of other natural history (marine components, including marine mammals, plankton, fish and fishermen's comments, water quality, etc).
- Summary of weather and efforts.
Sector 1: Bronx-Westchester (CT outside scope of this sector).
- Seawatches from NY (from both sides of LIS).
- CBC: NY Bronx-Westchester
- Seawatches from CT and from NY.
- Shippan Point, CT (P.Dugan et al) for 22 days!
- CBC: CT Greenwich-Stamford
- CBC: NY Northern Nassau
Sector 3: Westport/Northport.
- Seawatches from CT and from NY.
- CBC: CT Westport
- A.Collins/P.Dugan cruise.
Sector 4-6 Water Quality Cruise
Sector 4: Stratford-Milford/Smithtown.
- Seawatches from CT and from NY.
- CBC: CT Stratford-Milford
- CBC: NY Smithtown
- Bridgeport/PortJefferson ferry
Sector 5: NewHaven/RockyPoint.
- Seawatches from CT and from NY.
- CBC: CT New Haven
Sector 6: Guilford/Jamesport.
- Seawatches from CT and from NY.
- Faulkner Island cruise
Sector 7-9 Water Quality Cruise
Sector 7: OldLyme-Saybrook/Orient.
- Seawatches from CT and from NY.
- CBC: CT Old Lyme-Saybrook
- CBC: NY Orient
- Orient ferry area
Sector 8: NewLondon/Montauk.
- Seawatches from CT and from NY.
- CBC: CT New London
- CBC: NY Montauk (used as benchmark for comparisons within LIS)
- New London ferry area
Sector 9: Napatree/BlockIslandSound.
- Seawatches from CT, NY and RI.
- CBC: CT Napatree
ANY OTHER TOPICS anybody would like to volunteer for this report.
Other sections of this report:
- Promontory Profiles (Al Collins is leading this sub-project): a bit about each of the well known points from which we watch seabirds, including which birds favor which patches around each promontory and why. Plus as much marine biology as we know, and as much history as "old-timers" would like to contribute.
- Worksheet of total numbers ( LIS Bird Count online summary worksheet ).
- Explanation of data sources, quality, etc.
- Names of all contributors (with their permission).
- Conclusions/Thoughts.
Of course these 9 sectors were drawn as "oval placeholders" for visual convenience and simplicity, and to communicate the point clearly. These 9 sectors really will be more "rectangular" delineated where possible by longitude lines, with full coverage and PARTITIONING of all of LIS waters, no gaps, and no overlapping areas between them (unlike the approximate oval depictions of them, which are just meant to suggest the CONCEPT of 9 sectors).... ....
 |
| Left click on this image to enlarge. These "oval placeholders" suggest the 9 sectors for reporting. A detailed map with actual sector boundaries is forthcoming.. |
Do you think this is a good way for us to document the LIS Bird Count? Can you think of a better way? Should we instead just produce a super-concise one or two-page report on the whole count (see the sample below in gray type)?
This seems like a huge report (all the blue items above), but if you think of each item as a paragraph or two, it is not really that large. Additionally I can post each item's text (literally a paragraph or several) online (see the image of the draft website below) to make it more manageable and more like a mosaic that we assemble in small pieces, as we go along and know each piece. After that online site is complete and stabilized we could also export that text to become a COA document.
Coming back to our 2013 data, are you OK using this structure in BLUE above?
Would you like to volunteer for one item (this is optional, of course), to draft any one paragraph for our 2013 text report? This includes any of the 40 items listed in BLUE above, or any other topic you would like to contribute to this report. You can sign your name or initials to the item or not, up to you.
Ideally each item would be very concise and to-the-point (one or two paragraphs, or longer if you really wanted). Volunteers could write one or more paragraphs, for one or more items. Perhaps it could be a joint product with the NY counterpart, where there is a counterpart. We have found several very good birders willing to collaborate on this project from the NY side, including the compilers of the corresponding NY CBCs.
If you have any suggestions for a better framework/structure for this report (or a better way to conduct our next LIS Bird Count), please let us know. Whatever structure we agree on, I will make the combined report available online for easy viewing/editing (see the image below). It would be great to agree on a framework for these reports now, so we will be ready for doing this again in December 2014, and we will already have a structure to immediately add text to, before we forget what happened out in the field. It is difficult on August 1st to remember all details from December, which is the situation we are in now.
Here is an image of the totally new website I have started constructing to collect and publish all of our LONG REPORT, for 2013 and 2014 counts:
SHORT REPORT:
And if you prefer the report to be super-concise, here is a possible first draft for that....
===========================
We performed a month-long December count of all the birds in LIS Long Island Sound (we excluded "land birds" except for Snowy Owl), on both the CT and NY sides, spanning the 110 miles of water from the Bronx at the west end, out to Orient, Stonington, Napatree, Plum Island and Fishers Island at the east end. We extended our count period to include December 1, 2013 through January 5, 2014 to encompass the last Christmas Bird Count (on Jan 5th) on the LIS coast. We wanted to improve our knowledge of two questions: what bird species are in LIS in December, and what changes might be happening.
The December LIS Bird Count was successful thanks to a very large numbers of birders and other citizen scientists. Many observers contributed data, many trips were taken, and many birds were seen within LIS, including one or more of these exciting species of interest to bird science such as King Eider, Harlequin Duck, Barrow's Goldeneye, Pacific Loon, Red-necked Grebe, Western Grebe, Northern Gannet, Dovekie (Quonochontaug), Thick-billed Murre (Misquamicut), Common Murre (from Orient/NewLondon ferry), Razorbill, Black Guillemot, Black-headed Gull, Iceland Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Glaucous Gull, and Snowy Owl.
A pelagic trip on Dec 2nd about 60miles SE of Shinecock LI, NY (outside LIS by about 70 miles), had 14 Northern Fulmars, 24 Black-legged Kittiwakes, 2 Great Skuas and four species of shearwaters. Unfortunately none of those more "pelagic" species were seen within LIS during our count, and only the kittiwakes have been seen within LIS with any regularity at all in recent decades.
<<a results/interpretations paragraph(s) summarizing the more interesting LIS Bird Count numbers could be placed here, and continuing our collaborative approach to this work, we would like to solicit opinions and inputs from all interested persons regarding any possible interpretations of this data, so please feel free to volunteer/contribute any commentary about the results of our LIS Bird Count, species by species and/or at a higher level>>
One change which is obvious to long-time birders around LIS, compared with the second half of the 1900s, is that there are many more Northern Gannets, Lesser Black-backed Gulls, and alcids in LIS. Finding these species within LIS, some in numbers, in the 1950-1980 decades would have been considered extremely unusual (and that was not for lack of trying... there were plenty of birders who were familiar with Gannets and alcids off the Atlantic coast of Long Island and New England who also tried to find them in LIS in those days).
These LIS BirdCount numbers are being assembled at the following online worksheet ...
LIS Bird Count online summary worksheet .
<<This worksheet is about 95% complete.>>
Raw data inputs (including paper data collection forms) will be copied and archived for anybody who might want to do a deeper analysis, at some future date.
This LIS Bird Count was a deliberate experiment to census LIS birds (over that entire large body of water, for five weeks) and collect bird observations in many different ways, including several different kinds of boat trips (using several different survey protocols), Christmas Bird Count partnerships (with a dozen CBCs in NY and CT), eBird sharing (over 230 trip checklists were shared with our eBird account "LIS BirdCount"), listserv advertising, ad hoc reporting, repeated daily counts in one area throughout December, etc. An analysis of these methods will be published later this year.
Many people contributed to this LIS Bird Count, with contributors based in CT, NY and elsewhere. A list of contributors is being assembled and will be published. If you are a contributor, but do not want your name on this list, please contact us at robben99@gmail.com
One benefit of this bird count has been the establishment and strengthening of partnerships with birders and organizations in different towns, in CT and in NY. This collegial infrastructure can be built upon for additional field work and knowledge sharing, and it will make a repeat of this bird count easier next time.
One of the goals of this project, to get more young people involved and more interested in Nature and especially birds, has not had notable success, yet, but we will continue to work toward that this year.
And thanks again to you, every contributor and partner, each and every one, including the compilers, captains and observers on all of the dozen Christmas Bird Counts around the perimeter of LIS.
===========================
NOTE ON GIS AND MAPPING:
Note that we have decided not to try to create any GIS maps (such as "heat maps") of our data. Our data is too irregular, too sparse, and the cost and effort to do this is just too great. If someone wants to do this in the future, with ArcGIS software for example, it is possible, but would be a large effort.
