This site focuses on these questions


Sept 13: WHITE-TAILED TROPICBIRD found in CT on Aug 28th! Read this fascinating story at Greg's site....

SEPT 10: CURRENTLY WORKING WITH THE eBIRD TEAM TO GET ALL HURRICANE BIRDS INTO eBIRD. PLEASE ENTER YOUR STORM-BIRDS INTO eBIRD THIS WEEK, OR CONTACT ME (robben99@gmail.com) OR MARSHALL ILIFF TO ASSIST.

This Hurricane Irene blog was meant to be helpful for just ONE WEEK to provide REAL-TIME reporting of ALL Atlantic coast storm-birds DURING the "teeth" of the storm, but the storm's winds and flooding killed our electricity and this blog. Without electricity, water and internet for 102 hours prevented us reporting during the most exciting part of the hurricane and its birding aftermath.
Instead of trying to "catch-up" and reconstruct those 102 missing hours from the archived listserv reports, we will instead 1) summarize them, 2) learn what we can from this "experiment" in real-time-hurricane-bird-blogging, 3) request eBird data entry of all hurricane reports, and 4) get ready for the NEXT hurricane this year!

Therefore we will refocus on the latest current map of the NEXT hurricanes and their projected storm tracks.....
Tropical Storms and Hurricanes (and the wind speed probabilities map... Wind Speed Projections ) and prepare again to answer these questions....
What impacts will the next hurricane have on birds on the East Coast of the USA (plus the western Atlantic and maritime Canada)? And how will that be reflected on the twenty main internet bird lists covering that region?

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Tropicbird discovered in Connecticut!

This White-tailed Tropicbird was discovered exhausted on a road in northwest Connecticut during Hurricane Irene, 50 miles from the nearest salt water....


Go to Greg Hanisek's site for the full fascinating story (and thank you for the photo Greg!)....  Talking Nature with Greg Hanisek » Irene’s Biggest Present


And please enter your Hurricane Irene birds into eBird (and to ARCC or your local state ARC Avian Records Committee).  The eBird team has identified these as the most important species they would like entered into eBird, please.....

TOP PRIORITY:

Tropicbirds
SOTE  Sooty Tern
BRTE  Bridled Tern
GBTE  Gull-billed Tern
SATE  Sandwich Tern
LHSP  Leach's Storm-petrel
BSTP  Band-rumped Storm-petrel
HUGO  Hudsonian Godwit
jaegers
pelicans

Second priority:

BLTE [definitely elevated numbers]  Black Tern
RNPH  Red-necked Phalarope
REPH  Red Phalarope
inland shorebirds incl. Whimbrel, BB Plover etc.
inland COTE  Common Tern
CATE  Caspian Tern
ROYT  Royal Tern