Three of the 6 planned field seasons for the Indiana Breeding Bird Atlas project have now been completed, but much effort is still needed and it is not too late for new volunteers to participate in this rewarding project.
Atlasing is a loosely structured form of birding/surveying in which bird species (along with evidence of breeding) are recorded in predetermined priority blocks about 10 square miles in area. The end result is a series of maps of Indiana showing the presence/absence of each species in the 647 priority blocks uniformly distributed throughout the state.
So far, over 43,000 atlas records have been entered for priority blocks, about 37% of the total compiled during the 1985-1990 project. Since 3 of the 6 planned field seasons are now behind us, we would have liked to see this figure closer to 50%. However, it is somewhat of an underestimate, since I know some folks have not finished entering their observations from previous years.
The bottom line is that a concerted effort is needed by current and new volunteers to atlas during the remaining 3 years. If you are interested in participating and would like to be assigned one or more blocks, please let me know.
During the last Breeding Bird Atlas, we found it necessary to supplement volunteer atlasing efforts by contracting some individuals to cover areas with inadequate sampling. It looks like we will begin doing that again this year. If you have your summer free (students, teachers, retirees, etc.) and would be interested in intensive atlasing of 10 or so priority blocks, let me know and I will send you details.
Thanks.
John Castrale
Bird Biologist
Indiana Division of Fish and Wildlife
jcastrale at dnr dot in dot gov