[BCNnet] your sightings needed

[Judy Pollock]

The new BCN/eBird interactive bird data entry page is now able to receive
sightings from anyone in the Chicago region - you are invited to use it. 

All Chicago area birders can now make a contribution to our knowledge of bird
populations and movements by recording observations on the recently expanded
BCN website hosted by Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology. Whenever
you visit a Chicago-area "hotspot," all you need to do is to record the total
numbers of each species that you observed and the time you spent at the site
(the same way you would do for a Spring Count or Christmas Count.) Then go to
the BCN reporting site
<<http://www.ebird.org/BCN>http://www.ebird.org/BCN><http://www.ebird.org/B
CN>http://www.ebird.org/BCN and
enter the data. You can also use this site if you notice an unusual species in
one of these hotspot areas and want to record it.

This is a special, Chicago-area version of eBird, and using it will ensure
that your data is shared with the people who maintain the public lands our
birds
use. You don't need a special password to report these "timed
observations"--although current monitors who are reporting on transects and
point counts will continue to use their BCN passwords for those reports. On
this site, you can view results of all the observations made in the Chicago
region. After you enter data, you can get a report of your observations that
can be copied and transferred to other files or messages. All your
observations are kept together in a file for you, so this site not only
contributes to
local and national understanding of bird distribution, but it can serve as
your
personal record-keeping site. 

To view our current list of hot spots, visit http://www.iit.edu/~cos/BCN/ .
You can use the reporting site to suggest additions to this list.

We hope you'll take a look at the site and explore a bit. (In about 2
weeks, we will enter many years of our back data from throughout the
region, so
the
analysis features will be much more interesting to use.) We are truly the only
place in the country with something like this, and the more people enter data,
the more powerful it will be.

If you are already using eBird, please consider switching over to this
site. If you are currently a BCN monitor, this is the site to use to enter
your
data on - when you use "My eBird" you should find that your point counts and
transects
have been set up for you already. Of course, we always need people to do point
counts and transects - let me know if you are interested in doing those.

This version of the eBird site was developed by Lee Ramsey, Ron Klingensmith,
Doug Stotz, Jerry Garden, Robert Sliwinski, Donna Hapac, Alan Anderson and
myself locally; and Steve Kelling, Paul Allen, Tom Fredericks, Jeff Gerbracht,
and Eric Banford from Cornell; with funding from Chicago Wilderness, the
Audubon Science Office in Pennsylvania, and the Illinois Department of Natural
Resources Wildlife Preservation Fund. 

Judy Pollock
Evanston (Cook)
bobolnk@ix.netcom.com