Birding News and Features

Visit an underbirded county!

While it's fun for Dane County birders to compete with Milwaukee County birders for number of checklists and number of species in eBird, a look across the state shows significant gaps in eBird coverage. 

Hotspot of the Month--Poygan SWA

Another month — another county!  This month Andy Paulios and Paul Samerdyke (WI DNR Biologist) profile the Poygan State Wildlife Area located on the southwest shores of Lake Poygan in eastern Waushara County.  Much like December’s article, this hotspot lies in an under-eBirded county. 

Waushara County contains diverse grasslands, wetlands, forests, savannas and large bodies of open water however; the latest eBird species bar chart shows only 222 species reported for the county and a few weeks of the year completely lacking checklists!  With that in mind we hope to turn you on to a great wildlife area for birds and birders and encourage you to enter checklists in 2012!

Make it your New Year’s eBird resolution to enter details for flagged records!

Wisconsin eBird has among the best eBird participation rates of any state — that’s great news, but results in a lot of flagged records heading into review.  In fact, even though eBird reviewers work most days to clear records, we still currently have a backlog of nearly 600 records in review, many without comments, which take much longer to process.  

Read on to discover the importance of including comments for flagged species to make sure your observations are getting quickly processed and added to the eBird database.

eBird Rare Bird Alerts are here!

After releasing Year Alerts last week, we are happy to announce another exciting Alert option -- the eBird Rare Bird Alert. This alert basically takes the eBird Notable Birds Google Gadget and moves it into an eBird Alert environment, meaning that you can now receive hourly or daily email summaries, or just go view rare birds on the web at our eBird alerts page. One key update is the addition of counties to the available alert regions, meaning you can customize your rare bird alert experience more than ever. The new Rare Bird Alert notifies you about any unusual bird that has been reported in your region of interest, and provides a link to the location and to the checklist so you can get more information about the sighting, and make the critical call as to whether it's worth calling in sick to work!

Hotspot of the Month -- Reclaimed Flambeau Mine Nature Trails

We spun the wheel this month and landed in underbirded Rusk County. Wisconsin eBirder Rory Cameron agreed to profile a Rusk County hotspot (the only Rusk County hotspot at the moment): the Reclaimed Flambeau Mine Nature Trails near Ladysmith. Reclamation began in 1997 and the site now features woodlands, wetlands, grasslands. (Disclaimer: profiling a reclaimed mine does not imply endorsement of other, larger, potentially more-destructive mines!)

Photo Quiz #13

Another photo quiz is upon us.  This one is seasonally appropriate and all three birds were photographed in Wisconsin.  FIRST person to send correct species identifications for all three birds to wiebird@gmail.com wins a free eBird bumper sticker!