Reading The ReportIntroductionImportant Terms Navigation Highlights Codes Data Retention Tips Introduction The NYC Bird Report (NYCBR) provides information about bird sightings in two forms: species lists and species pages. Species Lists Because the NYCBR accepts sightings for any species no matter how common--right down to the ubiquitous House Sparrow--the report is able to provide complete species lists. An example of one of these complete species lists is the Year list for Central Park. To satisfy readers who are interested only in noteworthy sightings, the NYCBR also contains highlight lists. An example of a highlight list is the Today's Highlights list for Central Park. Whether or not a bird sighting is treated as a highlight is explained below under Highlights. Species Pages Species pages play two roles in the report. First, they provide the details of sightings appearing in Today, Yesterday, and highlight lists. Second, they provide statistics based on reported sightings. One species page is maintained for each species appearing in any report list and its scope is limited to the birding site subsection in which it occurs. The sightings listed on a species page are limited to those falling into one or both of the following categories: (1) The sighting was made today or yesterday and includes additional information. (2) The sighting is a highlight sighting and appears in Today's Highlights or Recent Highlights. Important Terms likely---greater than 50% chance of occurring in the opinion of an NYCBR editor (as this term is used on this website in reference to bird observations) low probability---synonymous with unlikely high probability---synonymous with likely observer---a birder contributing one or more sightings to a report sighting (also observation)---the event of someone discovering and identifying a bird in the wild, by sight or by sound. submitter---the person who sends in a report via E-mail (not necessarily an observer on the report sent). unlikely---less than 50% chance of occurring in the opinion of an NYCBR editor (as this term is used on this website in reference to bird observations) Navigation The hierarchy below shows the principal pages of the NYCBR. Each of these pages contains a list of birds observed during a given period (or not observed, in the case of the Missed lists). The Summary page is a consolidation of highlights from all participating birding sites. Home Summary BIRDING SITE (e.g. Prospect Park) Today's Highlights Recent Highlights Today Yesterday Half-Year Year Likely Today Likely Yesterday Likely For Year Missed Today Missed Yesterday Missed For Year The name of a bird on the NYCBR website, in most cases, serves as a link to a species page. The NYC Birding Report logo at the top of every page serves as a link to the current web page's parent in the hierarchically arranged pages of the website. Highlights There are two reasons why the sightings of a particular bird on a particular day may be treated as highlights. One reason is that those sightings represent the first sightings of the year or half-year (July 1 - December 31 only). The other reason is that those sightings were unlikely enough to have occurred, in the opinion of an NYCBR editor, that the editor would like to consider them highlights. To find out exactly what an editor's expectations are for any bird on any day at a particular birding site visit the Birds list in that birding site's subsection of the NYCBR. This list contains all the birds that the editor expects sightings for at some point during the year. The date ranges next to some of the birds in this list indicate the days of the year for which sightings have a high enough likelihood of occurring that the editor would not consider them highlights. Codes For aesthetics and readability, single-character codes are used throughout the NYCBR. These codes appear after the names of birds to convey information about the observations of these birds. Example: Marsh Wren (YD) Assuming that the above entry appears in the Yesterday list for Central Park, the YD in parentheses tells us that yesterday was the first time the Marsh Wren was reported in Central Park this year and that the observation or observations had a low probability of occurring in Central Park on that date. There are four codes: D - on this day, this bird is unlikely to be observed at this birding site, although this bird is likely to be observed at this birding site each year. H - this is the first day that the bird has been reported in the period July 1 - December 31. S - this bird is unlikely to be observed at this birding site. Y - this is the first day that the bird has been reported in the current year. Data Retention The complete content of every report submitted to the NYC Bird Report is preserved. At any given time, only a portion of this information will be displayed in the pages of the NYCBR website. Tips The pages on the NYCBR website are changing all the time as reports are submitted. To ensure that the web page you are looking at is the latest version, use your browser's Refresh command. | |