CT Bird Atlas Winter Surveys

The following is an excerpt from an  OCTOBER 30, 2020 message BY CHRIS ELPHICK

Winter is here

[At our] third annual volunteer appreciation event, [we showed] preliminary results and provide[d] more guidance on how to use the web site.  We were not able to record the event, but you can review the presentation sides here and we plan to post the highlights, with some additional explanation, … on the blog over the forthcoming days.

…The winter has finally arrived, and the third winter field season for the Connecticut Bird Atlas begins … Winter data collection runs from 1st November until the end of February, so it is time to brush up on the winter protocols and start planning the next bout of data collection.  As with the breeding atlas, we have opted to add a fourth field season for the winter atlas, to accommodate any constraints people face as a result of the ongoing pandemic.  We are still hoping, however, that we will be able to make a lot of progress this winter, to match the superb advances that the summer produced.

If you’re new to the winter atlas, or just want a quick refresher on how to approach surveys in your block, here’s a blog post from 2018, that describes a good strategy for making the most of the time you spend in the field.