[cobirds] Re: Fantasy birding - another game?

Just a final reminder - these games start Sunday.  You can always join late but if you have a competitive streak that would put you at a disadvantage.

COLORADO FIELD ORNITHOLOGISTS FANTASY BIRDING GAME #2 (Colorado) and #3 (ABA) - SIGN UP TODAY FOR FREE at http://fantasybirding.com

CFO is offering this game as an opportunity to 'see' birds around the state while we are under stay-at-home orders with limited ability to enjoy birds in other parts of the state. If this game is successful, we will have more rounds.

Create your free account, got to the Join tab, and scroll until you find COLORADO FIELD ORNITHOLOGISTS GAME #2 and/or #3. Join the game(s). Choose your starting location for April 26 as prompted. The easiest way to pick your birding location each day of the game is to go into the My Games tab, open the game, go to Calendar, choose the date you're picking a location for, and either type in a location name or use the 'Show Notables' or other tools on the right to choose a location. You can change your mind up until 6 a.m. of the indicated date.

Diana Beatty

El Paso County

CFO Board

On Tue, Apr 21, 2020 at 5:39 PM Diana Beatty <otowi33.33@gmail.com> wrote:

Okay there is enough interest to continue.  Based on the requests, I have created two games that will run concurrently from this Sunday April 26 through May 30.  One game is Colorado only, the other is ABA region.  You can join one or both as interests you.

COLORADO FIELD ORNITHOLOGISTS FANTASY BIRDING GAME #2 (Colorado) and #3 (ABA) - SIGN UP TODAY FOR FREE at http://fantasybirding.com

CFO is offering this game as an opportunity to 'see' birds around the state while we are under stay-at-home orders with limited ability to enjoy birds in other parts of the state. If this game is successful, we will have more rounds.

Create your free account, got to the Join tab, and scroll until you find COLORADO FIELD ORNITHOLOGISTS GAME #2 and/or #3. Join the game(s). Choose your starting location for April 26 as prompted. The easiest way to pick your birding location each day of the game is to go into the My Games tab, open the game, go to Calendar, choose the date you're picking a location for, and either type in a location name or use the 'Show Notables' or other tools on the right to choose a location. You can change your mind up until 6 a.m. of the indicated date.

See the FAQ below if you have questions, otherwise see you at the game(s)!

How does this work?

Welcome! You've decided to take on one of the biggest challenges in birding: observing as many species as possible within a designated area and a designated period of time. This game will run from the stroke of midnight on 2020-04-11 to the last minute of 2020-04-25. It will cover the land area of Colorado. The player listing the most species within this area will win. (Sorry, no cash prizes, just for fun.)

Each player may choose one location per day, within the designated area, in which to bird. Each location must be chosen before 6:00 AM (local time) of the day you plan to bird there. The location may be a named hotspot, or it may be any other point within the designated area (chosen by clicking on the map). If no location is specified for a given day, the player will continue birding at his/her current (previous date) location. Locations can be chosen any number of days in advance.

Each player will automatically get credit for all sightings within a 10-kilometer radius of the specified location, as long as they are made within the corresponding 24-hour period and reported to eBird within 48 hours. (Thus, birds seen at your Wednesday location may not show up on your list until Friday.)

Sightings marked by eBird as "provisional" (typically species seen unusually far from their normal seasonal distribution) will be recorded separately. These will be checked retroactively by the game, and will be moved to your main list if they pass eBird review. See below for more info on how provisional sightings are handled at the end of a game.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

• Can locations be changed once they have been set?Yes. However, if either the local time at the desired new location or the local time at the already chosen location are later than 6:00 AM on the day you plan to bird there, you will not be allowed to make the change. This is to prevent players from taking advantage of time-zone differences.
• What species are considered "countable"?The list of birds that count toward your year list essentially corresponds to the American Birding Association's latest Checklist, which can be found here (and currently contains 1,112 species). There are three important exceptions or caveats to this.Exotic species: Some introduced birds, like House Sparrow, are well-established just about everywhere and are always considered countable. Others, like Egyptian Goose, have established self-sustaining wild populations in certain parts of the country. Though they are often encountered in other areas, birds there are better considered as domestics or escapees. These species will be automatically added to your list regardless of where you observe them, but your list may later be revised to exclude them. Still other birds, like White-cheeked Pintail, have occurred naturally as wild vagrants in the ABA Area but are also found in exotic collections. The listing process for these is the same, but be advised that you will need to use some discretion (and/or do some outside research) when deciding whether to chase a reported bird.Sensitive species: There are certain birds whose data eBird does not publicly disclose. These are populations that are highly rare and vulnerable, or that have been adversely affected by hunting, collecting, or other practices. As these species aren't available through the game in the conventional way, they will be awarded to each player immediately upon joining. At the moment, for example, the list for the ABA Area includes nine species categorically: Gyrfalcon, Spotted Owl, Northern Hawk-Owl, Great Gray Owl, Lesser Prairie-Chicken, Gunnison Sage-Grouse, Black Rail, Puaiohi, and Hawaiian Crow. It also includes local populations of other species, such as the reintroduced Whooping Cranes in Wisconsin, although these species can be seen and counted elsewhere. Review the list here and take this into consideration when planning your trips.
• If a bird isn't reported within 48 hours, is it gone forever?The 48-hour mark is the cutoff beyond which the game will no longer automatically check for birds on your behalf. However, you have two tools you can use to check past locations for late-reported birds. For each past date on your calendar, you will see a Check Hotspots button -- this will fetch all checklists submitted from hotspots within your circle on that date, and add any new birds found to your list. Alternatively, if you know of a particular eBird checklist (from a hotspot or a personal location) for which you haven't gotten credit, you can put that checklist's ID into the text box on the corresponding calendar date and submit it for consideration. (The checklist ID will be an "S" followed by a sequence of numbers, and is clearly displayed on the eBird page for that list.)
• What happens to birds that are still under review when the game ends?eBird reviewers have a lot on their plate, and many observations - some valid, some invalid - inevitably remain provisional at the end of the game. To help ensure that you aren't unfairly denied any of these, the game will run an automatic process at the end of the game for assessing lingering provisional observations. The rule used is this: if any observation of species X has been confirmed this time period in the same county as your observation of species X, then your observation will be confirmed. The process may be run more than once, to avoid any last-minute scoreboard-shuffling surprises.

Diana Beatty

CFO Board

On Tue, Apr 21, 2020 at 10:17 AM Diana Beatty <otowi33.33@gmail.com> wrote:

The first Colorado Field Ornithologists fantasy birding league game is wrapping up this weekend.  Our current leader is Cole Sage with 166 Colorado species but there are others close behind.

I am looking to gauge interest in starting another game after this one concludes, so if you have interest let me know, and also let me know if you would like it to be a Colorado game, ABA game, or world game, etc.

Thanks,

Diana Beatty

CFO Board

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All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.

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All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.

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******

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.

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