Wednesday, February 13, 2019

The updated Dearborn bird checklist

I've now put up a revised version of the Dearborn bird checklist incorporating changes through 2018. A link is also in the sidebar.

This checklist complies with all taxonomic changes made by the American Ornithologists’ Union to the 7th edition of the AOU Check-list of North and Middle American Birds, through the 59th Supplement, published in 2018.

The Dearborn bird checklist contains 263 species plus two hypothetical species, most of which were recorded on the University of Michigan-Dearborn (UMD) campus and adjacent green space. Records were compiled from over 50,000 banding records from programs that took place on the UMD campus (from 1971-1987, and 1992-2014 as the Rouge River Bird Observatory) and elsewhere in the city; thousands of standardized surveys, mostly by RRBO; published historical records, archived photographs, and documentation; and other material determined to be credible. Links to supporting information on some of the more interesting species are included in the checklist below.

If you are interested in the residency status, relative abundance, dates of occurance, and sighting locations of these species, detailed information, plus a guide to birding in Dearborn, references, article reprints, and data tables is in the book The Birds of Dearborn, An Annotated Checklist, published in 2007. A PDF is available for only $7.

I am currently considering work on a complete update of the annotated checklist portion of this book. It would include details on over a dozen new species recorded since 2007, hundreds of new dates on arrivals, departures, etc., and dozens of status changes.

If there is sufficient interest from people that would like to purchase a copy of an updated annotated checklist I can determine how much it will cost me to produce a final self-published PDF. It would likely be around $5-8. It would not include all the maps, detailed location information, and appendices of the currently published book. If you think you are interested, leave a comment on the form in the sidebar (just as feedback, no commitment!) or on the Facebook page so I can determine what to do. Please let me know your thoughts!

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