the PMCA Scout Arrival Study

[Louise Chambers]

This seems like a good time to mention the scout arrival study - it's not only a place to report your colony arrival dates, it's a place to research arrival and landlord history in your area.

Dates are online going back to 1998. You can start at any point and then use the sort feature to give you the results you are interested in. For instance, click on your city, and view all arrival dates of both adult and subadult martins, from 1998 to the present.

Or click on your name, or a landlord name you would like to view arrival history for - and all their reports will be pulled up. You'll get more results via city search, as people don't always use their full name each year - might be Tom Smith, T Smith, etc. You can sort by date, too - this will go by year, not arrival date though.

It's interesting to look at the date range of reports for one location over the years. This should help anxious folks or newbies realize that the migration window is a wide one - arrivals of adult birds can last into June, even in some southern states on occasion. Subadult arrivals really don't get rolling until March, and also continue into June.

To view just this year's results to date, the link will show the N America arrival map. Click on any state to view this year's reports.

http://www.purplemartin.org/scoutreport/

We thank everyone who participates -

[Bill Pec]

Thank you Louise,
We appreciate the great efforts of the PMCA's staff. You provide invaluable records and advise.
Bill

[Linda Reynolds]

Louise this is such a timely and helpful post. Only today, after reading a post by flyin-lowe, did I realize the Scout Arrival Report was not being fully utilized by many of our senior members.

The PMCA's Scout Arrival Report is one of the very best tools that we have available, and I thank you, and the entire staff for keeping it current and available to Forum participants. If fully utilized it will answer so many questions posted by those that are new to this Forum and hobby/mission. It is also a wonderful way to keep track of one's own personal history of reporting. I LOVE IT, and think it is one of the best tools that the PMCA offers (other than the prognosticator). Thanks, and thanks for the reminder. I hope our newest members investigate and learn a lot about martin arrival dates in their area.

[Dave Reynolds]

Louise --

The "Scout Arrival Study" is a wonderful tool. I watch every year, state by state until the Martins arrive here in Little Hocking (South Eastern Ohio). I have made a few reports through the years and it has shown me a pattern for the Martins in this area. You can group all my reports together and see that they arrive between March 15th to the 25th.
I have been reporting them here in Little Hocking for an older friend of mine that lives 2 miles away. He does not want to get involved. So I help him every year, to clean his houses and help raise the poles in spring. He does no nest checks. (He always seems to have around 150 birds every year.
He calls me as soon as the first bird arrives. I drive over to see the bird, and then we sit, with coffee in hand and tell old Martin stories.

Thanks again for all your work,
Dave Reynolds

[Donnie Hurdt MN]

Thanks for explaining that feature Louise. I never new one could do that, this old computer dummy just got a little smarter thanks to you!

[CarrabelleBirder]

thanks for your help ..have been a "reporter" now 2yrs ...so that is fun.
as a 'newbie' trying to keep/start my own colony ...you have the FOS scout report ...but what about frequent new 'scouts' or arrivals ? I'm an avid birder so I journal daily 'what's in the yard' and in the past 7-10days have had from 4 - to 32 (2-08-11) in my yard resting in AM ... this AM 02-10-11 had 14 rather ratty looking ... they were adult males and females, about 8 have stayed all day in gourds out of the cold N wind.- my question ... is there a place to post this info?
Thanks- have a great birdy day.

[Louise Chambers]

Carrabelle,

It is fun to keep track of what's out there. The scout arrival study collects just the first adult and subadult martins. We don't have a project to map continuing arrivals - that would be interesting, wouldn't it?

[Billy Stephens]

The Scout Report is great! This entire Site is great! Why are Martins so addicting? I had my first mating pair last year and I cant stay away from the window just waiting for them to return. I hope they do. The only thing that could make the Scout arrival map any better is, if you could flash back to any given date and see what the map looked like at that time. But I'm sure that would be nearly impossible so forget I mentioned it.

Billy

[Louise Chambers]

Billy,

I wish we could do that too, it would make an animation of scout arrival that would be fun to watch. Maybe in the future. For now, dots have to be added by hand, so to speak - it's not automated yet.

Your martins are certainly on their way by now

[LarryMelcher/KY]

It would be nice if the "purple dots" were smaller. When you click on a state, it would be nice to see a dot smaller that did not cover a 50 mile area. Could they be adjusted smaller by the administrator? This would also be nice so at the end of the migration you could see areas that either did not get a report because of no landlord participation, or because of topographical areas such as the mountains of eastern Kentucky.

[Louise Chambers]

I've collected all the sugestions made in this thread and others; we'll see if we can incorporate some or all of the ideas. I don't know if some can be put into place this season or if it has to wait for next year, but it's nice folks care

[Guest]

Hi Louise, I have been a landlord in Wichita since 2002, but never filled out the required forms. Last year I fledged 45. I have 18 rooms total in my houses. Would like to give information as you need it. And be a part of the Wichita group. My scouts arrived yesterday, April 1st. Yahoo.

[e p jones]

Louise:

It is great as is.

However, try pushing your zoom level to 200% and you will see much better the "white areas" where no PMs are reported.

What would be an enhancement would be to double the size of the map on the web page, then, half the size of the arrival dots.

Looks like the dots are at least 50+ miles across; or the same dot would cover at least C/C and Port O.

Rick

[kim w.]

Should you report a scout if your still don't have an established colony started and just have visitors?