To quote a recent post on this listserve: "North American ornithology already has a lot more data than any comparable discipline, certainly in terms of phenology and distribution, and I am reluctant to jump on any of the many bandwagons enlisting birders to accumulate still more. Enough is enough, and we don't need to know where every robin is during every moment of its life these days." Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I suspect that few ornithologists or conservation biologists would agree with that sentiment. Certainly I can't agree with it, based on my work on bird distribution. In compiling graphs of seasonal bird occurrence for various regions, and in drawing and revising range maps for every North American species of bird, I have been (A) frustrated at the major gaps in available data and (B) amazed at how the picture is constantly changing. Bird distribution in North America is incredibly dynamic, with ranges expanding and contracting and shifting, populations increasing and decreasing, migration routes shifting, timing of migration changing. Even if we knew every detail of bird distribution today -- which we don't -- it wouldn't take away the need for gathering data tomorrow, because we don't know how things are going to change. I encourage all birders to affirm the value of their observations and to continue reporting data to the Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas II, the Christmas Bird Count, e-Bird, the Breeding Bird Survey, raptor migration counts, special one-species efforts such as the Bald Eagle and Rusty Blackbird surveys, and other cooperative monitoring projects. Kenn Kaufman Oak Harbor, Ohio ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]