Sunday, May 3, 2009
How to avoid Sean's losing interest
OK, I have a suggestion. Since there is no simple, fair, way to correct for Sean's birding advantage from his yard (short of deleting all the species he sees which we do not!), I am thinking it might make sense to allow us all to claim another spot or two as part of our "yard". Perhaps even places not that close to our houses, but ones which could add habitat diversity or better view of horizon, etc., which might equal the total acreage of Sean's yard and even the score? Wouldn't this help keep Sean interested in spending time in his yard, and be relatively fair?
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I could see maybe extending your yard to include your subdivision or something like that. I don't know about including other area locations that aren't geographically near or contiguous. That just seems to sort of lose the point. Then it should just be a local patch competition... But whatever you guys want to do. I don't have that much incentive to really beat the brush in my yard as it currently stands.
ReplyDeleteThis morning I walked back there and added 18 flyover Bonies, a singing VESP, and a female YWAR. Very few migrants around though. The same migrants I saw four days ago are still here hanging out with BCCH's and BGGNs... Mostly just local birds. Waiting for a really good push.
The problem here is that both you and us are likely to lose interest when the competition isn't even close. And even if we got it close you would step up your effort just enough to reclaim the lead and then relax again. I will likely never get Swamp Sparrow here, or at least if I do it will take years of watching migrant sparrow flocks (few and far between), yet you have them nesting in the prairie out back, etc. I also have a roughly 100-120 degree view of the sky (not quite to the horizon, but close enough) compared to your 360 degree view (so hawks, waterfowl, Common Loon, Bonaparte's, etc. are far less likely to be detected), and your pure acreage also means there are more individuals of more species in your yard. For me it might make sense to just expand to my entire subdivision, perhaps including the airport, as that is the only location at which I am likely to spend much time anyway. For Curtis, we could expand it to the only other places he spends time: his hawk watch locations up north. I agree it's kind of arbitrary, but as is this contest is a foregone conclusion and it could be closer if we do something like this. Still totally open to other ways of evening the playing field...
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