The discussion on Ovenbirds is an interesting an important topic, especially with regard to potential causes of perceived population changes. I would like to comment directly on some of the remarks made with respect to OBBA II. It should be noted that protocol hasn't really changed since the first Atlas. The codes are mostly the same. A couple have been altered for a few reasons, one of which is for more regional consistency. Data from the second Atlas will be comparable to that from the first. In actuality, there isn't much to the "protocol" - it is essentially just birding (with special care to document time spent in the field, and observed breeding behavior). That "ease of survey factor" been one of our talking points when trying to get individuals involved. It is a citizen science project, and designed to capture presence of breeding individuals, not abundance. As Haans mentioned, this type of survey can often obscure trends of species declining in numbers, and that is one of the reasons why it was decided to add abundance surveys to the second Atlas. Each year we had a small paid field staff conduct rigorous abundance counts in blocks across the state. Over 14,000 abundance counts were completed throughout Ohio. While we won't be able to make comparisons to the first Atlas (1982-1987) with regards to population changes, it will set a baseline dataset for that question to be explored with the third Atlas. Abundance data are very important, but that does not imply that the general Atlas data are not valuable or important. With the Atlas block data, we are able to look at a lot of important questions such as species distribution changes, by utilizing large number of recreation birders. Matthew Shumar Research Associate / Project Coordinator Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas II The Ohio State University School of Environment and Natural Resources 2021 Coffey Road Columbus, Ohio 43210-1085 Phone: 614-247-6458; Fax: 614-292-7432 ______________________________________________________________________ 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]