California Bird Atlas – adding notes

What a tremendous first two months of atlasing! We’ve been reaching out to many of you reporting atlas-first species, potential pitfalls, or those borderline cases where some clarity is needed. Like flagged rarities, proactive field notes from observers will save us (and you) a follow up email. It is very helpful for the Atlas review team if you add a description of the behavior you observed, especially for those highest-level breeding codes, the so-called Confirmed behaviors.

For Confirmed codes:

NY – Nest with Young (young are visible, how many?)

NE –  Nest with Eggs (eggs are visible, how many?)

FS – Carrying Fecal Sac (describe what you saw)

FY – Feeding Young (describe what you saw)

CF- Carrying Food (what was the food item? beware of food caching/adult eating elsewhere)

FL – Recently Fledged & Precocial Young (describe what you saw)

ON – Occupied Nest (adult visibly sitting in incubation posture, for cavity nesters you’d want to note time on/off nest)

UN – Used Nest (a nest from *this* year, note why you used this code)

DD – Distraction Display (what was the behavior?)

NB – Nest Building (nest should generally be visible, or repeated trips to unseen site)

CN – Carrying Nesting Material (what is it carrying? big sticks/fine grass?)

PE – Physiological Evidence (rare, bird banding use)

Thanks!

Justyn Stahl

North Park