There have been several comments on the change in numbers of birds. Looking at past lists is interesting and fun. But, only hints at what changes have occurred. Often I hear comments about birders’ contribution to science, but except for certain people most birders are out for play. Which is fine if you accept that is what you are doing. Bird numbers are changing all the time and they need to be documented. “I remember when” doe not cut it when trying to save habitat or influence policy. Policy makers need hard data. A while back I realized being a Biologist is very depressing. All the jobs are in protecting and saving remnants, (sort of like a fireman). One doesn’t get paid to study the mysteries of life one sees every day. When I moved back to Connecticut I considered how to spend my time birding. Chasing rarities no longer held much interest. I thought about what Lordship like 100 years ago, and that we really don’t know except from the scraps of old records. I then thought about what kinds of records to leave behind for the next person 100 years from now. To be scientifically useful for the future, field notes should be quantitative and reproducible. Number of birds, even the common ones, is important to assess magnitude of change. What does common, or regular really mean? These types of description are subjective and may be obvious now but 100 year from now? In writing a report on Red-headed Woodpeckers I found this often cited comment that they were “as common as Flickers”. What does that really mean? It begs the question: “Well, how common were Flickers then?” Using numbers can give you averages, standard deviations, and statistical tests. Their meaning is always the same. Instead of saying “It seems to me that warblers are less common than 50 years ago”. One can say “There was a 50% decrees in abundance over the past 50 years”. Which statement do you think would have more weight? Granted, counting birds takes time and the accuracy can be questionable, but something is better than nothing. I find that counting shorebirds in flocks over ten is usually an estimate, the way those little buggers run about. It really doesn’t matter much if you count 15 birds and there are really 18. As long the number is reasonably close, it is OK. Putting down 50 birds however will cause problems. The larger the numbers the more slop is allowed. Counting the huge rafts of Scaup is an educated guess. With practice and experience one can come up with reasonable numbers. When in doubt use this trick: Bracket the number; Is there more than 1 and less than 100? Is it more than 20 and Less than 50? Eventually you will come up with a reasonable estimate. What really bugs me is when people put down something like 40+ Coot. What does the plus mean? They had 40 coot but there was more, how many more, 10 more, 50 more, 100 more? Why not just give it your best estimate and be done with it. Yesterday I was out birding and saw 10+ Starlings. The hard part is keeping running totals of the common stuff. How many Cardinals do you see in a day birding. Unless you write down numbers as you go you will never know. Blue Jay is a common bird, yet when you actually stop and count the birds you see, some time only 1 or 2 are seen for the day. The really hard part is counting the really abundant common birds. Even I have my limits. For the most part I do not count Common Crows. Mainly because when I am birding I move slower than the birds and there is a good chance I could be counting birds more than once (I will make note of large congregations). I do not count Rock Pigeons, Monk Parakeets, Starlings, House Sparrows, and Black=backed, Herring and Ring-billed Gulls. Imagine trying to get a good count at Seaside Park Bridgeport at low tide, that would kill your day. It should be done, it is just that I haven’t figured out the best way to do it yet. Also, during the summer I don’t count Robins, Red-winged Blackbirds and Grackles. When I am on the shore and concentrating on counting ducks or shorebirds I pretty much ignore the land birds because the numbers would not be representative of what is really there. The second part of useful record keeping is reproducibility. The number of birds one sees is affected by many conditions. The ideal situation is to keep all the conditions the same so that any difference in number is due to the birds themselves and not the conditions. One major condition is where you go. Can someone look at your notes and retrace your steps? Birding Lordship if done thoroughly would take at least a day, 2 during migration, Some sites I cover all the time some occasionally. My list would vary depending upon what sites I do and don’t cover. So, I enumerate the sites I do cover in the sequence I cover them. so someone can retrace my steps in the future and see how things have changed. For inland birds I created several routes and made detailed notes about how they are covered. For 5 years I covered the routes to create a database. In the future someone can follow my footsteps and QUANTITATIVELY see how things have changed. By the way, I also photographed the routes so one can see the changes in habitats. Other things to Include is weather data, tide information, and sea conditions, (White Caps, Calm, Rippled, Glass etc.). Quantitate birding is very demanding with delayed gratification. I would suggest for starters picking out your favorite (most often birded) site and just do that. Dennis Varza Fairfield