I want to thank Haans, Matt, and Terri for not only their posts announcing
the Atlas book, but also for all their contributions to the project over
the years. The success of OBBAII is ultimately the result of the incredible
effort of hundreds of volunteers.  Hopefully, this volume is of great use
to birders, land managers, and researchers throughout the state. This book
is certainly not meant to be a replacement for fantastic books like
Peterjohn's *Birds of Ohio*. We have cited these works extensively and list
several important Ohio books for additional reading.

If I may take a moment to address one of Haans' points though, specifically
that "...*due to differences in methods and effort, the comparisons over
time cannot be viewed as conclusive.*" In Chapter 3 (Survey Design and
Analytical Methods) you'll find that much care was taken in ensuring direct
comparison of results in *priority blocks* between atlas periods.
Statistically significant trends are noted where applicable and should be
considered valid. Drivers of trends however were not assessed directly at
this time (additional research is underway) and since neither abundance
data nor occurrence data in non-priority blocks were collected during the
first Atlas, direct comparisons cannot be made for those data.  Given the
comparability of occurrence data within priority blocks we hope that
additional researchers will take the opportunity to work with the rich
Atlas dataset, and the Ohio Division of Wildlife will likely be the
caretaker of the database into the future.

As Terri mentioned, I'll be giving a talk this Friday night at the
Watershed Stewardship Center at West Creek Reservation in Parma. I will
have a small number of books with me in case anyone wants to get a copy
there.  Event details here:
http://www.clevelandmetroparks.com/Main/EventsProgramsCalendar/Science-Lecture-Putting-Nesting-Birds-on-the-Map-8219.aspx

Our publisher, Penn State University Press, has been incredible to work
with and they will continue to offer the book at a reduced priced for a
limited time. You can get 30% off the list price by ordering directly from
PSU Press here: http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-07127-5.html
along with the order code OH16.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed to the Atlas. Please don't
hesitate to contact me directly with questions.

~Matt

--
******************************************************
Matthew Shumar
Project Coordinator - Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas II
Research Associate II - The Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio

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