Please read here about the importance of negative data if you looked for
rusty blackbirds.

My thanks to Aaron Boone, Project Coordinator, Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas II
for reminding me of negative data entry. All of you Rusty Blackbird chasers
should enter your negative data, too!

It works like this:
You drive fifty miles to Island Road in Pickaway County because you think
there may be rusties there. You arrive and begin birding at the creek
crossing west of Route 50. You proceed slowly, scanning for blackbirds. You
find a few individual red-wings, then a flock and chase it along treelines
along Island Road. You spend thirty minutes getting a good count of all
blackbirds and starlings in the flock. You list all other bird species seen
during the search, too (or not).

You find three thousand mixed "blackbirds" (including 2800
starlings--non-native, not in blackbird family, but ubiquitous (counting
starlings is a way to search for blackbirds)), but no rusties.
You drove 0.75 miles during the search.

Very briefly,
Go to eBird:
Enter the search location (Use map feature to find location).
Enter the date: ?
Enter the search miles: 0.75 (don't report the total travel miles)
Enter the start time and total time: 35 minutes
Enter the number of each "blackbird" species found including a zero for each
species not found (numbers of sexes, rusty males and females and male and
female red-wings, too, if you have it)
In the notes section, describe the weather and habitat plus the behaviors of
the blackbirds (lots of details for rusties).
List all species seen if you kept a list of those, too.

Negative data is very important if you made a careful search for rusties.


Now, go find those owls for the Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas II project. Great
Horned Owls and Barred Owls are already active and within safe dates.
Everyone can and should contribute! Aaron posted several reminders recently.
Watch for Aaron's future posts. Be a part of the Atlas!

This from Aaron, posted February 2:
"In particular, we really need additional help in trying to document
nocturnal species like Great Horned Owls and Barred Owls (safe dates began
on February 1st).  Great Horned Owls are especially vocal right now.  I
sometimes find it very difficult to detect Great Horned Owls during the
summer months when the majority of atlasing activities are taking place.
And this species tends to not be as responsive to tape playback as are other
owls (like Barred or Eastern Screech-Owls).  Our current lack of detections
for some nocturnal species may simply be the result of a lack of
appropriately allocated effort.

For optimum survey results, try to select nights that are clear &
calm...noise from excessive wind can make it terribly difficult to hear
calling owls.  Also, there are results from research that indicate that
moon-phase plays an important role in call-frequency of owls.  However,
other research indicates that it's less important.
Moon-phase may or may not play a factor in owl call frequency in Ohio but
for those that are curious, the next full moon is on February 8th.
 Typically, owl survey protocols recommend that you conduct surveys 1 hour
after sunset and before midnight but birds can also be very vocal just
before dawn.

Please consider making an effort to track down some of these fascinating
birds.  Please contact me for advice on looking for owls or appropriate
areas that still need survey coverage. Good birding!"


Tom Bain
Ohio Coordinator, Rusty Blackbird Hotspot Blitz
Ohio Ornithological Society Conservation Committee

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