Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Documenting the Sightings

One more post about the bird tracking template.  Bear with me, this is one of my most favorite subjects - wildlife.

I noticed in the stats that no one has read either of the previous posts, so either you're not birders or I have failed to represent it correctly.  If you are interested in documenting your backyard sightings, here are some tips on how to use this PDF document I created.

This is available from MagCloud.com and you can easily access it by clicking on the image of it in the left sidebar, or in my previous post.  The downloadable version is only $2.  I recommend this format so you can print out one document for each month you want to track your bird or other wildlife sightings.

Here is a sample page.

  
The left column going down is the day of the month.  Years across.  In this sample I have used a page from May that had some sightings documented over three years.  This document is for the period of 2008 through 2011.

When I created it I wanted something simple, easy to use and lots of options to change it.  So for the MagCloud copy, the years are 2012 through 2015.  You fill in the month.  There are enough pages for all the days of the longest month.

The fun thing here is that for instance if the Swallows arrived on May 22nd in 2008, and May 25 in 2009, they may arrive again on May 22nd in 2010.  So you have documented their arrival for every year for four years - at a glance!

OK, maybe birds aren't your thing.  Do you have deer?  Bear?  Raccoons and babies?  Maybe you want to track the plant growth;  when you planted the seeds for the spinach, what did well when.
Anyway, you get the idea.

OK, so there is the how-to on the bird tracking form.  Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

3 comments:

  1. Looks great, Jeni! What patterns have you noticed this year? What birds do you track? We just have a few simple birds around here. One special pair, though, is a red-tailed hawk couple that lives in the green space one block away. I love hearing and seeing them! :-) Jennifer

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    Replies
    1. Jennifer that is incredible that you have hawks to watch! They are fascinating.
      Mostly here I have forest birds, all season, and migrating.

      The tracker made it possible for me to document the sightings and have data to look to the following year! Such fun.
      I especially enjoy first time visitors.

      As always, thanks for visiting and sharing your experiences.

      Delete
  2. Great idea for documenting your sightings.

    Thanks for stopping by and leaving your nice comments.

    I hope you have a wonderful week.

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