Early Winter 2021-22 Summary

We’ve crossed the half-way point for the 2021-22 Winter Atlas, completing the “Early Winter” period at the end of January, and thanks to the effort of our volunteers it was a huge success!

At total of 1,749 atlasers contributed 16,628 checklists to the Maine Bird Atlas during the early winter period. While much of this effort went towards boosting species counts in already complete blocks (due to Christmas Bird Counts and a Steller’s Sea-Eagle drawing attention to the greater Boothbay area), there was still an amazing effort in incomplete blocks. Over 1,200 hours was spent in incomplete blocks, and 104 of those blocks were completed! This brings our total number of completed winter blocks to 881. Here is a snapshot of our Winter Bird Atlas Results dashboard showing those results:

One of our goals this winter was to increase the number of top quads (in the green borders in the above map) with at least one block completed in it. Those 104 new blocks were distributed over 42 new topos quads thanks to atlasers willing to travel further afield.

The below graphic provides a summary of all this effort from the Early Winter period of the 2021-22 Winter Atlas. Thank you so much, atlasers!

Don’t forget to join us on Thursday evenings, from 6:30-7:30PM for our Weekly Q&As on Zoom. Bring your questions about the atlas, using eBird, or just come hangout and chat about the birds you’re seeing! Links for the Q&A zooms can be found on our Events Calendar, and recordings from past Q&As are on our Facebook page.