Kev's Christmas Bird Count: Why?

Why? Simples. I fancy a holiday from my standard south Medway birding!

The standard Audubon Christmas Bird Count couldn't really work here, as purpose/results are mostly covered by existing standard surveys. Mostly. Of course, most of our standard survey efforts never seem to appeal that many birders. Heck, even old fashioned January 1st bird races seem to have lost some of their appeal. 

But, and hear me out here, what if finding a way for a parts of the county to get 'thrashed' for a winter week, with several teams out cooperating to ensure as many 'subsites' get covered as possible, was promoted/sold as fun? Working towards a combined score of not just species, but numbers present? That even feeder watchers can take part in (a warm up for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch). That'd be something different, maybe something that could get a Society more publicity/ more members?

But no-one's going to risk it here. Are they?


Some CBC basics:

• Get your Circle: A Christmas Bird Count must take place entirely within a 24 kilometre (15-mile) diameter circle.

Yup, drawn it (good ol' Google Earth) in a way so as to get all my south shore sites in. Just a game for me, I'm sure of a county adapted CBC as a 'Tick Week' or similar they could base around county sub-recording areas or..

• Centre Point: The same centre point should be used each year.
.. 10km squares. Yup, for my game, my rules, centre point is Greenborough. But if this county did it they could choose square-shaped circles - the existing OS 10km square mapping. Really Doesn't work for my 2021 CBC game as Medway estuary is spread over two of them.

• Circle Overlap: Circles should not overlap neighbouring counts.
Hah! One reason why circles could never work here. There'd be riots over positioning. We already have tetrads for many of our other existing surveys. This is just for a bit of fun, my fun. I've done a circle to allow me a birding holiday during my Count Week and I'm excited- heck, I might even visit a wood.. 

• Count Period: Your count needs to be conducted within the official count period, between December 14 and January 5, inclusive.
Yup. Big period because some of the very old CBCs (been going for more than a century) were spread out between these dates. I'm sure if this caught on among Brit birders most would base their Count Week in/around the Xmas Hols. They could treat it all as scouting for their forthcoming all-important Jan 1st kick off for the Year List.

• Count Day: Your count must be conducted within one 24-hour calendar day.
Yup. It's like a Brit Bird Race. But with counts.

• Birds outside the circle seen by an observer standing in the circle should not be included in your census data.
Yup. (Fun making sure the circle covered all my seawatching spots/distances).

• Count Hours & Observers: Count Day should have a minimum of 8 hours coverage, either by one party or cumulative by a number of parties.
Yup. Mine's really just a solo low-carbon bird race within a circle. But with counts.

• ID by Voice: Birds may be identified by voice, but specimens or tracks are cw (count week) birds (unless you can document the fact that the specimen/track wasn’t present in the area earlier than the count day).
Yay, none of that 'heard only' rubbish. And dead birds or a Shrike larder count.

• Linear pelagic CBCs are allowed, if the boat follows the same transect or covers the same area each season.
Hmmm, not for me p/haps, but opens up opportunities.

• Scheme requests that each CBC circle maintain one point of contact for emailing of count materials, receipt of update emails on the CBC, and data entry of the count results. This primary circle contact needs to provide their name, address, email, and phone number to the Scheme's office upon creation of the circle. An email address is required for this primary contact. This one primary compiler may also designate other secondary compilers to receive emails, but only one main contact per circle can be maintained for other reasons.
Yup. If it ever caught on, it'd need coordinating. Why a Society really needs to get behind it here. This effort of mine is just a bit of fun, so I'm voting myself chief. Woohoo!

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So, what is Count Week?

Count Week is defined as from 3 days before to 3 days after your official Count Day. If your official count day is December 18th, then your Count Week extends from Dec 15th to Dec 21st. (The U.S. official Day Count period is Dec 14th- Jan 5th, so a Count Week can start from as early as Dec 11th and end as late as Jan 8th.)

Count Week (CW) birds are 'place holders' for that species on your checklist. They are not at all a part of your official census data for that season's day. For us Brits, they'd be week ticks. But they're not ticks, because they don't count for scoring. They're an absence/presence.

Birds seen during the three days before or after your count day but NOT on your official count day get recorded on the CBC checklist as "CW". No more, no less. No other information about count week birds is recorded in the CBC database. No counts, not even the date. They use the info in some obscure statistical witchcraft, but for participants nothing else matters. Of course, you can be encouraged to submit your data as per every other day of the year.

Count week listings do not count toward your species total or toward your number of individuals on count day.

It is not a requirement of the CBC to go birding during count week, but scouting time ahead of the count day, if it occurs during count week, can be an opportunity to rack up these other birds.

Numbers for any species seen on the official Count Day are the ones to be included. Even if larger numbers of a given species were found during count week than on count day, only the tally from the official census day should be entered on your CBC checklist.

Owling: Now this term doesn't mean what we Brits would limit it to; it covers all sorts of nocturnal birding. Nocturnal birding is an optional activity on CBCs. Scouting for nocturnal species prior to the count day help the Count Day score, or simply finding after the event gets birds for the CW tally. 

So, Kev's Christmas Bird Count week:

Friday 17th December: scout day.
Saturday 18th: scout day
Sunday 19th: scout day
* Monday 20th December: Count Day *
Tuesday 21st: missing spp. day
Wednesday 22nd: missing spp. day
Thursday 23rd: missing spp. day

The beauty of those missing spp. days is that they only add a species as 'CW'. They don't count as a score in any way/shape/form; just an excuse for going birding. Missing spp. days? North shore here I come! And perhaps a wood? Oh yes!

The route on the day.

I'm not 'bird racing'. I want to take part as if I were operating in a CBC circle team. The circle coordinator gets teams to cover specific areas, they make sure the circle is well covered. Tough job, they have to try and make sure no team gets the back end of beyond but might have to get a crew to go for low total/ high value species in a particular habitat.

Me, I'll be on one linear route, on foot, somewhere through this zone:

In a 'proper' CBC you have to note miles covered per hour and by what transport (an hour's seawatch goes down as zero miles) which then enables the number crunchers to calculate observer effort vs. detection rate, etc. Pftf. I'm out to show this concept to be fun. I'll be taking on the just the western basin on Count Day. Sure, I'd get a higher species score in the eastern basin, but I'm pretending another 'team' has got that covered on the day. I'm just having fun. This Count isn't a race. I can go look for 'CW' species there during the week.

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So, that's the set-up. There'll be daily reports both here and on twitter. Let's put some fun back in this 'barely-functional birder' over the next 7 days: #CBCMedwayEstuary is go!