[CT Birds] Comments on “Where do you go birding”

[Dennis Varza]

This group provides an unprecedented ability to gather data  
unavailable before or anywhere else. We all have a little bit  
knowledge about Connecticut birds that no one else has. By careful  
reporting and, gathering we can put the bits together to find  
patterns larger than the perceptions of any one person. One of my  
goals with the gulls was to demonstrate this idea and show what can  
be accomplished.

We make judgments on the changing abundance and distribution of birds  
based upon our observations. How our observations are done may  
introduce a bias in our judgments. By examining our procedures and  
methodologies we can find our biases and control for them. This is  
standard procedure for scientists.

What I am trying to do with the “Where do you go birding” is to  
identify the bias in our birding efforts. What areas get a lot of  
coverage and what areas get none. I think we all can list the top 10  
areas off the top of our head, but this would be biased by our  
personal experience so no two lists would be identical. It would be  
good to have an objective measure without bias for a variety of  
reasons too long go into now. What we really don’t know is where  
people don’t go birding.

In the “Where do you go birding” I tried to make it as simple as  
possible. Even so, there is a lot of individual variation. Two people  
may cover the same town the same number of times and one would call  
it a three and the other a two. This problem is taken care of by the  
magic of large numbers. The more people reporting the more variation  
gets averaged out and the more accurate the picture. I would like to  
get 100 people in this survey but would settle for 50. Less than that  
and the picture would be rather fuzzy and discerning only the  
obvious. And, frankly not worth reporting. It doesn’t matter if you  
are a homebody and only cover one town. How many like you are out  
there and where are you located? How many towns does the average  
birder cover? All that is important information. This data will be  
used only for this report (in case you have “Big Brother” issues).  
There are many active birders who’s names are often seen in the  
report I have yet to hear from. Just remember the 1 to 3 is a measure  
of frequency not a ranking.

Here are some preliminary results. I hesitate to report them because  
it may introduce bias in future reports. I have 34 observers. There  
are 168 towns, 51 have no reports. The most frequently covered towns  
follow. Notice Fairfield is ranked higher than Bridgeport or Durham.  
Is that really the case or an artifact of not enough reporting? That  
is why I need more people. Also, It seems that reason we get fewer  
reports form the eastern shore is that the people there also spend  
time in western Rhode Island.

Please, Please, Please,  SEND ME YOUR INFORMATION, you know who you are.

Dennis Varza
Fairfield

Madison	37
Stratford	28
Milford 26
New Haven	18
Litchfield	17
West Haven	17
Westport	16
Stonington	15
Fairfield	12
Old Saybrook	12
Bridgeport	11
Canaan	10
Durham	10
East Lime	10
Hamden	10