We are extremely happy to announce that the inaugural issue of The Manitoba Breeding Bird Atlas Bulletin is now available. This will be a quarterly newsletter that features stories from atlassers throughout the province. Click here to download the newsletter. We hope you enjoy this issue and please get in touch if you have story ideas for the next issue!
Many new atlas photos up at on this page, and you can also take a look here for more photos and stories.
In our first atlas year, we have already got some exciting reports that will help our atlas rewrite the range maps for many species. These include Peter Taylor's finding Northern Parula and Pine Warbler in the northern Interlake, Vic Reimer's finding what is perhaps the the southernmost nest of Bonaparte's Gull ever found in Manitoba and several new locations for grassland species like Sprague's Pipit, Chestnut-collared Longspur and Loggerhead Shrike as far north as Riding Mountain National Park. Keep up the great work everyone!
Today, June 15th, 2010, we hit 400 registered atlassers! This represents a huge success part way through our first season. Many have already begun to enter their data on line as well. The point counting season is also well underway despite some very wet weather. We continue to post people's photos on this page, although the demands of the field season mean we are a little slow sometimes at getting around to this. Keep up the great work everyone!
We have now added a data summary tool that should be useful for all atlassers, available here or under the "Data and Maps" tab. In addition, everyone can now view guidelines on the time they should allocate in each habitat type in their square on the Square Summary Sheets. To do this go to "Square Summary Sheets" under the "Data and Maps" tab or click here and enter your square number. Point counters can get information on off-road point counts from the Square Summary Sheets as well.
The printable square maps are now available for download from this page. If you asked us to send you a kit look for it in the mail by the end of the week! If not, all the pieces of the kit are available for download off the web site. Just in time for the arrival of many species!!
A new free online tool has just been released that should help everyone become more familiar with the birds in your area. Using this tool, called Dendroica, you can browse photos, listen to bird songs, and even test your abilities through quizzes. www.natureinstruct.org/dendroica/
We have already prepared the sampling framework for the atlas, including dividing the province in 14 administrative regions. Click here to view our atlassing map and see which region you'll be atlassing in.
The Atlas coordinator, Christian Artuso, maintains a personal blog about the atlas project. We invite you to visit his site regularly for interesting details and see what he has to say: manitobabirdatlas.blogspot.com
Within a few weeks, you will be able to start entering your atlas data yourselves in a new section of this web site. Watch this space for any developments.
You can now download here the Guide for atlassers as well as Atlas data forms as PDF files. Those who requested a printed kit should start to receive their material soon. We encourage you to read the participant guide carefully, as it contains a variety of important information about taking part in the Atlas.
