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Steller's Jay by FeederWatcher Steve Pearl, Aptos, California.
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Project FeederWatch eNews
January 18, 2023
Latest FeederWatch Story Winner
FeederWatch participants are invited to share their stories through the Your Data section of the FeederWatch website, either after submitting a count or after viewing a previously submitted count this season. The second story prompt this season was, "What’s your favorite bird to see at your feeders? Do you wait all season for a glimpse of it, or does it come every day? Share with us what makes that species so special to see at your feeders!" Congratulations to winners Kristi Bathgate and Therese Walsh who shared stories about Black-capped Chickadees and Red-bellied Woodpeckers respectively. Read their stories on our blog.
FeederWatching Reminders
Count Birds, Not Visits
Only report the highest number of each species you see simultaneously. No matter how many times a chickadee visits your feeders, if you only see one at a time, you report a count of one. Tallying counts this way assures that you never report the same bird multiple times.
Counting Flocks of Birds
Project FeederWatch recommends using a "blocking" method to count large flocks of birds: count the birds in a small portion or block of the flock and then count how many blocks it would take to cover the entire flock. Find more tips for counting flocks, as well as other confusing scenarios, in the Tricky Counts and Special Cases section of our online instructions.
Describe Your Count Site
One of the most valuable things you can do to enhance your FeederWatch data is to describe your count site and to confirm that your description is still accurate each year, if you described your site in a past season. In the Your Data section of our website, if you see a pink bar that says "Site Description for [your location] is incomplete," please click the link to complete the description. In the FeederWatch app, click the Site Description icon if a red dot is displayed in the icon.
Error Check Your Data
There is no one more familiar with your data than you are, so we encourage you to check your data for mistakes periodically. Do you have duplicate count sites? Are there any species that you misidentified and later correctly identified that you would like to change? Did you enter a count under the wrong date? If you discover that any data you submitted are incorrect, you can find instructions for editing counts in our Data Entry FAQs. Thank you for keeping your data tidy.
Describe Unusual Behavioral Interactions
FeederWatchers are invited to report two types of behavioral interactions observed during their counts: displacement and predation. If you report an unusual interaction (for example, if you report that a smaller bird displaced a larger bird or if you report a predation by a bird other than a raptor), please describe the interaction you observed in the comments box on the behavioral interactions page.
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