Prognosticator Suggestion for PMCA

[Guest]

I believe the PMCA and it's members would benefit from an online, web version of a prognosticator developed and hosted by the PMCA. The entry screens could be layed out similar to the ones in the Excel spreadsheet many folks use. Each individual could have their own site and housing defined and enter and store data throughout the year. The software would hopefully be used by non-members as well.

Think of this, each user would enter their city, county, and state. Each user could enter their exact housing. Each user would enter information on each nest including dates for arrival, first egg, hatch date, fledge date as well as number of hatchlings, nest failures, etc.

The benefit? Once the data is entered/stored, the PMCA and it's members could analyze this data.....instantly! Want to see what housing types are used in your city?.....pull up the data. How about in your county?......in your state? Which type of housing had the highest occupancy rate in your area? Immediate access to the data!

Are you having problems with nest parasites in your area? Pull the data on nest failures (in the middle of the season while something can still be done to address the problem) and look at the causes for nest failure in your county or state.

Do you band martins? Associate the band numbers/colors to a particular cavity (and thus a particular housing type). Have a banded martin nesting at your house? Have the ability to associate the band colors and numbers with a particular cavity at your site which is also associted with a particular type housing. If you banded 100 nestlings and 5 are reported the following year, you have the data to display a dispersal pattern. Want to know if martins tend to nest in the same type housing they were born in? Associating banded nestlings and nesters with particular cavity types would give you this type of information. Be interesting to know that 65% of the time martins select nests of the same type they were born in (for example). Do martins typically use the same nest cavity year to year? Data on banded martins would reveal the answer.......instantly.

Previous years data could still be accessible so you could look at reports showing growth patterns from year to year at your site.......or for your county.......or for your state.

How many times has the PMCA reminded everyone to send in their data? You wouldn't need to send it in if the data was stored and owned by the PMCA. I still haven't sent in my data from last year. How many others are in the same boat?

Oh, and if a member's computer harddrive crashes and they haven't saved their data elswhere, no worry........the PMCA has your data.

Seems the PMCA should give this consideration as I'm sure considerable time is spent manually collecting data from numerous sources. This data would be more detailed, up to date. It could provide much more information not only to the PMCA, but it's members as well.

I would be interested in others thoughts. Would you be willing to keep your prognosticator online instead of in an Excel spreadsheet on your local computer?

[TreeGreenwood]

You can enter some (most?) pertinent info by joiningThe Birdhouse Network (TBN) at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. TBN collects data on all cavity nesting birds and routinely cooperates with PMCA. TBN costs $15 a year, self supported by those who participate.

It'd take a lot of computing power and time to let everyone run the whole prognosticator spreadsheet on-line AND compile and analyze all the data entered. It may be more practical to set up an on-line page to accept the summary sheet from the prognosticator. Crunching the summary numbers is probably more practical

Take care,

Tree

[Guest]

TG,

It's not as much computing power as you might think. Key is that not everyone is online making updates at once. As far as recalculating, that is little overhead for today's web-servers.

It would take less hard drive space to store the raw data in a SQL database than it would to store the same data e-mailed to the PMCA in spreadsheet form.

As far cost, one must consider the cost of compiling the data manually for comparison. Probably be a 2 - 3 year payback. And think how useful the data would be........and how much info you get from the data gathered now.

I guess I'm saying I think it is practical.

It can be done.......someone with the vision and commitment to see it through to fruition is another issue.

[CUL Lou~Mich]

Hogwild. Just my humble opinion, and it may not be worth anything. However, you yourself state you still haven't sent in your data. Why would you think folks would put it into a computer any quicker. How many folks are there here, that as soon as the PMs leave, they do also. They go off to other pursuits in their lives. Perhaps camping, boating, fishing, hunting, who knows what. I personally don't think folks would bother putting their nesting/fledging information in any quicker than they do now, in sending it in. After all, once they have it all in place on paper, how hard is it to put it into an envelope, and mail it, versus transfering everything over to the computer. Like I say, JMHO. CUL Lou

[Guest]

I'm all for it. See my post on December 17,2005. The rewards to those that are computer savy would be inmeasurable.
If this was put into place it would catch on and grow.
Personally i don't think anyone has a valid reason to argue against it.
It is the future and as information was available it would help people become better landlords.
If you did not want to use the system then you could continue to mail them in.
Have a Great Day- Jim

[Guest]

Hogwild. Just my humble opinion, and it may not be worth anything. However, you yourself state you still haven't sent in your data. Why would you think folks would put it into a computer any quicker.

Lou, your thoughts and judgements of folks behavior is as valid as mine. Consider this, I took the time to enter all my data and still haven't sent it in. Point being that many want the data and are tardy in providing their data to the PMCA (like you mentioned, there are hundreds of other things they get folks side tracked).

How many folks are there here, that as soon as the PMs leave, they do also. They go off to other pursuits in their lives.

The point would be to get them entering the data and tracking their colony while the martins are still resident and while they are still active on this sight.

I entered my data in the spreadsheet version of the prognosticator because I wanted the data and I wanted to track my colony from it's first year forward. It would have been no more difficult to enter the data through my web browser and where the data would be stored at the PMCA for their use, my use, and everyone else trying to help martins use. Absolutely no more difficult........but would greatly aid the PMCA in gathering data. In the end it's about helping the martins and such a service would give us much more insight than we (meaning the PMCA and it's members) have had. After the payback period has expired, the PMCA could use funds that normally would be use to pay someone to manually assimilate data for better uses.

[Guest]

Bact to top.

I'm hoping that someone from the PMCA will at least acknowledge they read this suggestion.......if they decide to pursue the suggestion or not.

[Pat Kramer]

There are many website improvements that the PMCA hopes to accomplish in the future. The PMCA has been discussing just this subject for some time. We have been considering our options for for some time. I have also been thinking about what it would take to make such a web-based Project MartinWatch program. I have a degree in Biology, not computer science, but have managed to write some interactive pages such as the scout pages. However, the complexity of a PMW site still intimidates me.

Thank you all for expressing your interest. It may be just the push we need to make this happen.

[Guest]

You can do the work, create the site, develop a contact list, and make your project known . . . Some folks will decide to participate. Some folks won?t. Some folks will have egg, young and fledge counts. Some folks will give you some guesses. It?s amazing how many successful sites are in Michigan on tilt poles! No counts, no Sevin, no nest changes, no nothing but Martins (and a Sparrow or two at some). Then comes the next season. My experience shows that about 10 ? 20% of your members will offer data IF you ask for it on your site. Then it?s a long process of contacting each member that has an email address and ask personally for data (that?s what I?m in the process of doing on my site now). Then you get to write a letter to every single person that doesn?t have a computer and ask for data (that?s what I?ll do after the email). Then, if I don?t get some replies, I?ll spend a few hours making phone calls and ask for data. Then I get to input all of the numbers MANUALLY!!! It can be done, but it would have to be totally automated at the PMCA level. They don?t have the time or manpower that it takes to handle so many members. After I get done with my 2005 data project I get to attempt to add sites to my year old project so that I can have all of this fun next year.

Mark
www.michiganmartins.com

[TreeGreenwood]

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology (CLO) http://birds.cornell.edu/ sponsors many Citizen Science projects including The Birdhouse Network (TBN) http://www.birds.cornell.edu/birdhouse/. TBN's purpose is to collect scientifically valid data on all cavity-nesting birds including Purple Martins. Martins are in TBN's most wanted list becaue of the low number of folks reporting Purple Martins to TBN. In 2002, TBN had fewer total nesting attempts reported than would be expected in a medium size Martin colony.

CLO and PMCA have cooperated in projects in the past and CLO's web sites are very supportive of PMCA. Links to PMCA as the best source of info on Purple Martins are found throughout the CLO web sites.

CLO's Information Technology (IT) group http://www.birds.cornell.edu/it/ is primo for creating web-based data input sites and underlying data bases that produce scientifically valid data. I suspect that IT students from Cornell University sometimes do work for CLO as course projects.

Maybe PMCA and CLO can get together for the mutual benefit of both. PMCA can get help with automation while TBN gets access to detailed data on Purple Martin nesting. Now, which will initiate the contact?

Take care,

Tree

PS: If you host other cavity nesters like Bluebirds, check out TBN at at http://www.birds.cornell.edu/birdhouse/

[Guest]

You can do the work, create the site, develop a contact list, and make your project known . . . Some folks will decide to participate. Some folks won?t.

Exactly! You will get more data the way I'm suggesting than all your manual efforts combined. And no one is stuck manually compiling data as you describe.

[Guest]

Wow could you imagine being able to look at other site locations nest Data. There's no end to the possibilities.
We just need a Computer genius who loves PMs and has the time to write the program. Hopefully that person is among us.
The more i think of it i am really surprised the PMCA has not made this a priority. The technology is there. How many people and hours are needed to collect and compile the information sent in on sheets.
This is Huge people, everyone needs to speak up on this one.
Have a Great Day- Jim

[Guest]

I am surprised at the lack of responses to this subject. What's up everyone, say something.
Have a Great Day- Jim

[Guest]

Still early in the season to get a lot of response I'm afraid.