The new year has begun but I still wanted to complete the analysis of my 2011 'LGA Year' effort. You can read a quick summary of each county in my entries for the minor counties and major counties.
When I started this project I was coming off of a personal best big year and the decision to be 'low-key' for a year seemed like a major step backwards. This sentiment played into my rather ambitious idea of setting goals for six counties. I didn't fully appreciate how much time it would take to see a given species in so many places. For example, Fox Sparrow is a fairly common species, but not one I expect to see any given day and one that is available for only half of the year. It's one thing to see a fox sparrow in a six month period but its another thing to see six in six different places in that time. Combine this with the fact that I am trying to do the same for fifty or more species and you can see how quickly things add up: My goal was 700 total ticks (I ended up with 601 total ticks). Since work doesn't allow me to bird most days I had to cram all of those ticks mostly into weekend birding.
I did take a few things away from the experience worth repeating. Firstly, field time is paramount. The more time you spend looking the more finding you will do. Secondly, don't wait for second chances. There were many birds, especially migrants, that I should have had but missed. The simple reason was most counties didn't get a share of April-May birding because that time was focused on World Series preparation in Bergen and Passaic. As a result the other counties were deprived of a dozen or more easy warblers and other migrants. This left me scrambling for 'second chances' at these species in the fall and I simply didn't have enough birding time to make it happen.
In general I would try to make my goals a little narrower if I did this again. Looking forward to 2013 I intend to do the 'low-key' thing again after this years serious big year effort. Two likely scenarios might be to pick a single county for an all-out effort or two pick two counties and try to beat my one-year records for those counties.
0 comments:
Post a Comment