WRENDERINGS Progress Report Fall 2001

Breeding data received, August 3, 2001 Black=Threshold cleared (50% of target number confirmed) Dark Gray=Threshold cleared (33% of target number confirmed) Light Gray=Data received

Have you ever watched a steady stream of water fill a large bottle? Even though you know the same amount of water goes in each second, while the bottle is largely empty filling it seems to take forever. As the water level approaches the top, though, the bottle fills with astonishing quickness. That is what our final breeding season was like. The steady progress we had made in the preceding four years paid off. Our volunteers kept up the pressure in their adopted squares. Our blockbuster weekends attracted plenty of dedicated participants. Our field assistants fulfilled their assignments—sometimes going back as volunteers if they didn't clear the threshold on the day allotted for the square. Our attack squad was unstoppable—ravenous, hitting any uncleared square until virtually nothing was left. Thanks to Mona Baumgartel, Barbara Bell, Rich & Susan Breisch, Orval Carter, Joni Ciarletta, Joe Decanio, John Fitch, Pete Ginsburg, Ed Hall, John & Beverly Hargrove, Linda & Ron Johnson, Paul Jorgensen, Ann & Tom Keenan, Andy Mauro, Margaret & Bert McIntosh, Phil Nelson, Oz Osborn, Leslie Polinsky, Ginger Rebstock, Betty Siegel, Bob Sanger, Mary Beth Stowe, Ken Weaver, Jim Wilson, Kirsten Winter, and Jim Zimmer for their extra effort on the squad, and thanks to Conrad Sankpill for proposing the concept.

Our participants' resourcefulness was remarkable. Friendly landowners had kindness lavished upon them. Ken Weaver made long and difficult hikes into sections of Agua Tibia and Agua Caliente canyons that may never have been visited before by any human being, much less a birder. After the state park had no money this year for helicopter trips, Bob Thériault had the brilliant idea of hitching a ride on the sheriff's department's Astraea helicopter to the Santa Rosa Mountains, enabling him to clear square C27. Joe Barth's chance conversation with Bobby Curo of the Helix Water District made us a new friend and got us through the gate to cover square N18. I organized an expedition, Tom & Ann Keenan offered to drive the team in their four-wheel-drive truck, and by splitting up we were nearly able to reach the goal for the square in one day, discovering new locations for the Gray Vireo along the way. By a long hike from Boulder Creek Road Jim Zimmer, Ed Hall, and Joe Barth mopped up in the southeast corner of N18, and we cleared the threshold in a square I had once written off as inaccessible.

As of this writing, we have reached the coverage goals for the breeding season in 465 squares, an amazing 97% of the total. Nearly all of the 14 squares where the threshold was not met present difficult access problems. Six of the 14 met all the criteria for the threshold but between one third and one half of the target number of species was confirmed breeding. In another square (O25) Joe Barth met all the criteria for the threshold except the number of hours. Because of an unfriendly landowner in Canebrake Canyon this square can be covered only by an arduous backpacking trip from Indian Valley over steep boulder-strewn mountains. In only six squares were fewer than 90% of the target number of possibly breeding species found. And we have substantial data from every square but one, C4, sealed off in the "red zone" of the "Whiskey Impact Area" on Camp Pendleton.

For clearing the threshold for the breeding season since the last issue of Wrenderings, it's my pleasure to acknowledge...

Let us also recognize the participants in those squares where all the criteria for the threshold were reached but the number of confirmed breeding species was between one third and one half of the target number. Because most of these squares are extremely difficult, entailing long hikes across trackless desert or over precipitous slopes, this level of achievement can represent at least as much effort as in the squares that cleared 50% of the target number of species confirmed breeding.

If our effort in the project's final winter is anything close to our effort in the final breeding season, our results for that season will be just as impressive as for the breeding season.

Philip Unitt

birdatlas@sdnhm.org