woodcreeper

20100221-DSC_0400

Originally uploaded by woodcreeper.

MIGRATION! Yes, Spring is upon us, and things down here in South Jersey are changing faster than I can say “hey! look at that Laughing Gull!”. Southerly winds have begun to bring early spring migrants to the Garden State, and it’s only going to pick up from here. Bird song is thickening during my morning dog walks, and the beach just beyond our rental has had upwards of 3 different individual Black-headed Gulls during the last month. Here’s a shot of one of them, who as of today (this photo was from Feb 27th) has much more black in its hood… hopefully it’ll stick around to come into its full glory.

So I just wanted to get the ball rolling and assure you that I’ll be posting the radar starting late this month. I will try to take a combined forecasting-radar interpretation approach to make the site more effective, and hopefully get a little deeper into the radar analysis since that’s what I’m now doing for gainful employment (at NJ Audubon). Being this close to Cape May should afford me some regular ground-truthing as well- something I’ve been longing for ever since arriving in NJ back in January of 2004.

As things ramp up around here, be sure to check out Angel and Mariel Abreu who are the now running Badbirdz-Reloaded down in Miami, Florida (http://badbirdz2.wordpress.com). From there you can watch as birds arrive from Cuba and the Caribbean, as well as those that get blown east off of the Yucatan. Seeing these large flights moving up through Florida is a great bellwether for predicting arrivals here at home.

Okay- that’s enough for now. I hope to see each of you participating in the discussions here on woodcreeper.com… I think this year is going to be the best thus far!

Good Birding

David La Puma
Villas, New Jersey

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Is anyone reading this? It IS January, and so things at woodcreeper.com are pretty slow… but don’t be fooled- there are lots of irons in the fire right now! I just took a postdoctoral researcher position at NJ Audubon Society, where I’ll be quantifying stopover habitat using weather radar. I’ll still be running woodcreeper.com during migration, but now I’ll also be dedicating 40-hours per week actually analyzing radar data for my research. That (to my eyes and ears) is AWESOME! So I hope you continue to visit the site, and better yet, contribute your observations. Here’s to 2010 and all of the wonderful birds it will bring!

Cheers

David

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Thanks to everyone who sent a contribution either via PayPal, or physical check- you are awesome! Tonight I paid the bill, and we’re good for another year. Any more money that comes in will be split between myself and Mariel and Angel Abreu to put toward running our two radar/migration websites into the future. So the plan now is to have Angel and Mariel permanently take over Badbirdz-Reloaded, and for me to focus solely on Woodcreeper.com, so that we can each do the best work possible without spreading ourselves too thin. Eventually I hope to collaborate with some other like-minded individuals so we can establish a network of radar/migration websites across the country. If you think you fit the bill, send me an email and we can discuss it further.

After receiving my PhD this January, I’ll be heading south to start my new job at New Jersey Audubon Society, where I’ll be (amongst other things) writing up the results from a long-term radar analysis used to quantify stopover habitat of nocturnal migrants. I can’t wait to dive into some real radar data, as opposed to simply looking at the post-processed data available from weather websites. This has been a long-term goal for me up until now, and being able to realize it down in Cape May will be an excellent experience. I plan to use this experience as a jumping-off point for developing a more sophisticated radar-based migration forecasting tool.

At the very least, though, I’ll be able to ground-truth some of my forecasts in one of the hottest migrant traps on the east coast… and that alone is very exciting!

Thank you again for your support, and I hope to see you in the field sometime soon!

Good Birding,

David

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The bill from my internet host came today. Here it is:

This is a notice that an invoice has been generated on 11/12/2009.

Your payment method is: PayPal

Invoice #2014
Amount Due: $200.00 USD
Due Date: 11/20/2009

Invoice Items

WC Custom – woodcreeper.com (11/20/2009 – 11/19/2010) $200.00 USD
——————————————————
Sub Total: $200.00 USD
Credit: $0.00 USD
Total: $200.00 USD
——————————————————

See, I wasn’t kidding. At the bare minimum, It really costs $200 per year to keep woodcreeper.com and badbirdz-reloaded running. Thanks to two lovely donors, one of which doesn’t even use the site to track migration, we are up to $60. For that I am grateful, but if everyone who does use these two sites would pitch in a couple of dollars, we’d have this AND next year covered. So I guess it comes down to whether you value the service enough to support it financially.

If you find either woodcreeper.com or badbirdz-reloaded to be a useful service to you, then consider pitching in a buck or two to keep the archives archived, and the radar flowing.

I hate to ask for money, but it’s either all out of my pocket (which is pretty empty right now) or spread across all of our collective pockets (which means very little from each of us). As always, I am grateful.

Thanks for your consideration.

Good Birding!

David

You can use the Paypal button below to join the Woodcreeper/Badbirdz Flock:

Or, if you’d rather not use Paypal, you may send a check or money order to the following address:

David La Puma
2150 Amwell Rd
Somerset, NJ 08873

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This last year saw a whole lot of changes here at woodcreeper.com and Badbirdz-Reloaded. Most notable was Angel and Mariel Abreu taking the reins at Badbirdz and really running with it to the point that I have done nothing but keep the download scripts chugging along, and archiving the data for them. While my vision is to eventually have sites like these running across the country, the fact that someone (or some-two!) has gotten hooked enough to devote the time necessary to make it happen has been quite rewarding to witness. On another note, the economy has obviously impacted all of us in one way or another, and the lack of funding necessary to keep my migration forecast going at BirdCapeMay.org definitely made it difficult to fund my pet projects (namely Woodcreeper.com and Badbirdz-Reloaded). Despite this, I still upgraded my hosting in order to maintain the added gigabytes of radar imagery that has accrued since 2004.

In the past, many of you supported both of these sites by making donations, or purchasing bumper stickers, or whatever I was hocking on any given day. For that I have always been grateful, and your support has kept the sites going for the last five years.  As we near the end of fall migration, and head into winter, we also approach the time when my website hosting fees are due. As much as I hate to ‘pass the hat’, keeping woodcreeper.com and Badbirdz-Reloaded running does cost about $20/ month. Additional costs include hiring a programmer to write and update the download scripts, and developing a means for automating the process so that we can spend less time making the image loops, and more time analyzing them. Any donation you can make will be greatly appreciated, and all of the money will go directly into supporting the two websites.

You can find more information, on supporting the web site, on the following page:

http://www.woodcreeper.com/become-a-member/

Thank you, as always, for your support.

David La Puma

Angel & Mariel Abreu

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Birds were on the move last night, although lighter in density than the previous night. Winds were NE and therefore the best birding conditions should be at inland migrant traps this morning. Tonight is looking good for a big flight across the NE and Mid-Atlantic region, so if you’re interested in participating, please head over to the moonwatching page on the right-hand sidebar of this web page to get more info.

Good Birding!

David

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