Birdscope - Project FeederWatch--1997-98: Early Results

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SUMMER 1998/VOLUME 12, NUMBER 3

Project FeederWatch
1997-98: Early Results
By Margaret A. Barker and Diane L. Tessaglia-Hymes

Please cite this Page as:
Barker, M. A. and Tessaglia-Hymes, D. L. 1998. Project FeederWatch 1997-98: Early Results. Birdscope, Volume 12, Number 3: 8-9.

An early analysis of Online FeederWatch data
produces top 10 list

The Project FeederWatch long-term database keeps growing steadily, and that's the way we like it. By mid-June, we had received data from more than 7,218
of the 1997-98 participants--more than ever before. Thank you, FeederWatchers.

While the chug-chug-tseet-tseet-tseet sounds of our optical scanner wafted out through the windows on warm spring days (several Lab staff walking outside momentarily thought they heard early Blackpoll Warblers), the scanner didn't have to work quite as hard as it did last year. That's because 946 FeederWatchers, or nearly 13 percent of all data returners, sent their observations through the Online FeederWatch Data Entry Site within BirdSource, an innovative Internet database for bird information.

Those Online FeederWatchers reported data on a total of 422,419 birds seen during 7,581 observation or count periods. All of the Online FeederWatch data will be merged with the much larger data set sent here via the Data Form Booklets, and a full 1997-98 FeederWatch Annual Report will appear in the next issue of Birdscope.

Online FeederWatch's Top 10 Most-Frequently Reported Feeder Birds
Species	Percentage of count periods each species was reported
Dark-eyed Junco	69%
Mourning Dove	68%
House Finch	62%
Downy Woodpecker	61%
Black-capped Chickadee	58%
American Goldfinch	58%
Northern Cardinal	57%
Blue Jay	55%
White-breasted Nuthatch	52%
Tufted Titmouse	52%
Total number of all FeederWatch count periods reported: 7,581

Because Online FeederWatch goes directly into the database, it is available for analysis as soon as it is submitted. Already, we have an Online FeederWatch Top 10 list of the most-frequently reported feeder birds seen by those intrepid first-year Online FeederWatchers (see chart above). We've been able to plot where Online FeederWatchers saw Common Redpolls this past season (see map below), but we'll have to wait to analyze how redpoll distribution changed throughout the FeederWatch season.

These dots on the map represent where Online FeederWatchers reported data. The red dots indicate those Online FeederWatchers who saw Common Redpolls during the 1997-98 FeederWatch season.

Early looks at both your online and paper Comment Forms have shown a few emerging themes or events that seemed to help shape this past FeederWatch year: wandering finches, El Niño, the great ice storms of the Northeast, the Salmonella bacteria outbreak, and killer spring storms in the South.

We hope that many more FeederWatchers will send their data electronically next year. It is easier and less expensive for participants, it gets the data entered quickly and accurately into the database, and it will make future data analysis faster and more timely.

Stay tuned for the complete 1997-98 FeederWatch Annual Report in the Autumn issue of Birdscope.

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