Over the past few weeks, I've been writing up a database for Bird Observer magazine, a Massachusetts- based, bimonthly, entirely volunteer-run birding blurb that features articles relevant to birding, famous people associated with birding (the issue that I have beside me documents the history and practice of Ludlow Griscom, a personal hero of mine, who worked at Harvard in the ornithology department and was a pioneer in the optical birding and field mark recognition-based birding at is utilized today) and perhaps most importantly, records of the species reported to the magazine by birders around Massachusetts throughout the year. I approached Bird Observer after starting this blog and its sister blog On the Wing: A Life Inspired by Birds and asked if I could provide articles for publication as well as offering my services to volunteer to help them out.
That was almost a month ago and I've volunteered to help with the accumulation of a database that will be used to document all Bird Observer records prior to 1994 (which presumably is when computer records began) and catalog them in an Excel spreadsheet for easy access. Recently, I've come to realize the importance of this data in relation to another goal I've set for myself this year. As I mention many times on the biweekly updates of On The Wing, I'm currently trying to get 300 species of birds on my life list by the end of the year. I'm currently at 293 after a very successful trip to Parker River NWR this past Friday and now need only 7 species to round up the list. What really got me thinking about the importance of the work I'm doing for Bird Observer was the recent purchase of the three volume set of Edward Howe Forbush's "Birds of Massachusetts and Other New England States" as well as Ludlow Griscom's "Birds of Concord" and Frank Chapman's "Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America"
I will freely admit that I'm a lover of old books, especially about birds or nature. What I would give for an original copy of John Gould's paintings or Audubon's Elephant Folio, but alas lacking the requisite funds or stealth points needed to steal such works, I can still admire the civilian reproductions that show up every few years or so. Just recently my girlfriend got me a copy of "The Birds of America" with commentaries by William Vogt and I love reading his species descriptions ascribed to the over 300 species Audubon shot and painted over much of his life. However, over the past few days I've been using Forbush's and Chapman's guides to give me a sense when I should be focusing on certain migrants during this year's fall migration. Over the past several weeks, I've watched several warbler and sparrow species I've never seen before, as well as witnessing a very rare and accidental Say's Phoebe (Sayornis saya) that had been present at Parker River since Thursday of this past week. Needless to say, these texts not only mention the presence of these rare birds in Massachusetts beforehand, but also have the dates and places they were seen (and then subsequently dispatched by bird shot).
What this tells us whether you're a casual birder, an ornithologist, a biologist, or just about anyone interested in the presence of birds in our neighbourhoods and surrounding areas is that changes have been occurring since these records were compiled. For example, earlier this summer I posted this to On The Wing discussing the legacy of Ludlow Griscom in Massachusetts, as well as, the population trends and abundances of the species he frequently saw on his travels around eastern half of the state. He described how many forest species like chickadees and Blue Jays (Cyanocitta cristata) had suffered as a result of the massive logging of Eastern forests that had taken place in prior generations, while other species that preferred opener stretches of forest and farmland thrived. Nowadays, the opposite is occurring with forests heading towards or having attained small patches of mature glory, while the farm fields and secondary growth forests have suffered with age and patchier distribution.
Ultimately, what I hope to get out of this is a way to determine the periods in the year when certain species are more common and therefore more easily viewed while providing a picture of the changes that have occurred to bird populations in Massachusetts and adjacent New England states during the same period. What I'm especially excited about is what new species might be moving into New England over the next few years (or more realistically, decades). The recent influx of southerners in the last seventy years such as cardinals, titmice, and the almost ubiquitous Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus) are great evidence of that. I personally can't wait to see Blue Grosbeaks (Passerina caerulea) up here more frequently, but that's a dream for now. Hopefully soon I can begin to make such comparisons, but until then it's a cold, hard slog through cold, hard data. I wouldn't have it any other way.
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