[obol] where to find a XXX in Oregon? (how to)

[Paul Adamus]

OBOLers --

Like Karl Kosciuch noted in his post yesterday, we birders often wonder,
"Where could I find a ____ in Oregon?" [insert any species you want].  Or,
we want to list all the species reported from a particular location or by a
particular observer.  There are several resources available:

1) OBOL Archives.  As Karl notes, this has been a pain to use because you
can only search one month at a time (that's 60+ individual searches!).  *
However*  I recently took the time to merge all the OBOL posts from December
2001 through October 2006 into just 4 documents in MS Word.  These can be
rapidly searched using MS Word (Control-F).  You can download this zipped 22
mB file from:
    oregonstate.edu/~adamusp/OBOL

2) For prior OBOL records (about 1994 to 2001) I have files that document
species by COUNTY-YEAR  that were graciously provided to me in html format
by Matt Hunter.

3) In the online database, BIRDNOTES, you can search by species or by their
list of locations (not all birding spots are included).  There is some
overlap with OBOL, but not a lot.  The address is birdnotes.net    A similar
database is eBird, maintained by the Cornell Lab.

4) At least one of the more illustrious birders in this state is known to
have many previous years of the "Field Notes" section Oregon Birds on their
computer.

5) The Oregon Dept. of Fish & Wildlife created a database, OSIS, in the
early 1990s that organized records from prior issues of Oregon Birds and
other sources.  However, being a database, the locational information is
vague and inconsistent (mostly searchable by county only).

6) For summering birds, the CD containing our Oregon Breeding Bird Atlas is
perhaps the most complete and easily-searchable source covering 1995 to
1995.  You can order it for $20 from OFO, P.O. Box 10373, Eugene, OR (and
the Portland Audubon store may have copies again to sell).  But it won't
help you find Rock Sandpipers.
http://www.oregonbirds.org/breeding_atlas.html

7) For post-1999 and pre-1995 records of breeding species, files from the
national Breeding Bird Survey database that cover Oregon can be downloaded
and searched.  http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bbs/retrieval/menu.cfm   Christmas
Counts can be downloaded from National Audubon's web site.

8) Of course, the classic "Birds of Oregon: A General Reference" is a
treasure-trove of information.

I understand that the Oregon Natural Heritage Information Center (Eric
Scheuering) has begun merging all these avian distributional data sources
into a single database.  However, they do not currently have much funding
for that effort so it will likely take several years to complete.  They
already have excellent locational information for many of the rarest
regularly-occurring species, but are cautious in sharing it due to concerns
about the sensitivity of some species.

The above is surely not a complete list, but it covers what I've found to be
the most complete and accessible electronic sources for Oregon birders and
researchers.

Paul

*************************
Paul Adamus, Ph.D.
Adamus Resource Assessment, Inc.
and
Assistant Professor (Courtesy)
College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences,
and Water Resources Graduate Program,
Oregon State University
email:  adamus7 at comcast.net