Single Vote View

The following question was presented:

Given my new affiliation to the Bill Oddie posse and signing up to get mailings of bird sightings. What day of this week will I get notified of the most interesting bird?

Results:

Monday and Thursday tied with 33% of the votes each from the following selection:

• Monday (33%)
• Tuesday (0%)
• Wednesday (17%)
• Thursday (33%)
• Friday (17%)

Graphic of Results:

Analysis:

Monday yielded a number of emails around the migration of painted ladies (butterflies) and the fact that golden crowned sparrow were hanging around later than normal. The latter causing some discussion that it was not in fact late. Whilst interesting, not relevant to this week's vote. There was a good email that reported sightings of a glaucus gull, rufus hummingbird, multiple swallows, Wilson's warbler and great tailed grackles. Nothing amazing, but later emails reported a burrowing owl, varied thrush, cackling and white fronted geese, and finally, a pair of wood duck. There was also another note on the great horned owl (known to his friends as GHO), but this also included a chilean flamingo amongst details of 60 species (and yes, there were sightings of bushtit).

Tuesday only saw three emails detailing sightings. One of a pied billed grebe, one of bullock's oriole, Bewick's wren, red shouldered hawk and various wood peckers. The last of pygmy nuthatch and orange crowned warbler

Have you gone to sleep yet?

Wednesday produced an interesting debate about the use of acronyms to describe birds. A topic that I think will be discussed in more detail as time passes. But for now, the merits of the sightings were Eurasian wigeon, Wilson's snipe, great horned owl, northern harrier, red-tailed hawk, marsh wrens along with Allen's hummingbird and Bullock's oriole. Another message highlighted a number of birds again, the highlight being a western kingbird.

Still with me?

Thursday was actually the day of the monthly meeting of the Audubon society which I attended. There was a fascinating presentation by the person who had seeming spent his life studying birds. Seriously - it was really interesting and I feel that I haven't done him justice as I'm struggling to remember a quarter of the facts he shared with us. The other bonus was the fact that I won a hummingbird feeder in the raffle - cool. All this is great, but what did it produce by way of informative birding messages? Well, not a lot really. Only one email that talked of Bewick's wren, blue-gray gnatcatchers, orange crowned warbler and larkspurs.

Only one more day to go. Work with me now ....

Friday and the end of the work week. Potentially another day for good insights as people make an early break for freedom after a week being chained to a desk. I know by now that you're desperate for me to give you the details, so here they are - the first message bore details of a cooper's hawk, western bluebirds, titmice and chickadees before describing another location that yielded varied thrush and a golden eagle plus several woodpeckers. Another reported a pacific-sloped flycatcher, spotted towhee and western bluebird.

So, what does all this mean? Well, it means that Monday won. I wrote a comment when I posted my vote saying that I'd picked Monday and, given that this is, to a certain extent subjective as it's down to me to decide what's the most interesting, I'm not going to give an answer that means I picked wrong am I? If you're looking for a more scientific answer, Monday produced the most emails and the most information about the widest variety of birds. It also featured a pair of wood duck (that I've yet to see) that I think are very interesting. That, plus the great horned owl that we went to see at the weekend, pretty much ties it down to Monday winning.