I'm a regional editor!
It's been a crazy few weeks. As of this week, I'm taking over the volunteer job as the Region 2 Editor for New Jersey Birds (online) Magazine. This is NJ Audubon's documentation of the seasonal trends of bird populations throughout the state. Region 2 encompasses a massive area, basically the whole northeast portion of the state. It's the Piedmont Region including Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Union, Somerset, Middlesex, Mercer, and eastern parts of Passaic and Morris Counties. My "job" is basically to track and collect species reports and provide a quarterly summary for inclusion in the magazine. The summary typically includes notes on high counts, arrival and departure dates, and interesting breeding records.
Some well-known birding areas that fall within this region include Garret Mountain, the Great Swamp, Liberty State Park, the Hackensack Meadowlands, and the Celery Farm. Despite its geographic size, some of these counties like Middlesex (my home county), Union, Hudson, and Mercer have a lot more people than birds. They aren't very well birded due to lack of habitat. This new role will give me a good chance to learn about the birds that occur in those popular spots as well as some of these less-birded areas.
10 comments:
Congratulations! I'm sure you'll do a great job.
I was delighted to see that NJB is going digital--
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Thanks. Some in NJ don't share your feelings. A lot of people saw it as NJAS losing interest in the publication.
Congratulations! (Or not, depending on how much of a workload you get.) Hm, I have some documentation I should probably send you.
I'm not sure how I feel about the move to an online-only publication. Obviously they need an online edition, but I think the move makes it less clear where NJ Birds fits within the spectrum of rare bird record-keeping. I guess it depends on what goes into the new NJ Birds.
Hey John, I agree with you!
For your records, please send me any noteworthy sightings. You don't need to send me everything. If you report to eBird, I'll pick up stuff from there. In that case, just noteworthy stuff would be helpful. Thanks.
Congratulations! I'm sure your excited and maybe a little intimidated. Boy things are busy in the Belardo household these days!
Congrats!
Be nice to people who report very rare birds.
I will! I've had some practice while reviewing species for the Great Backyard Bird Count. I have to frequently tell people, in a diplomatic way, that they didn't see a Red-headed Woodpecker (a rare species here in NJ), but they saw a Red-bellied Woodpecker (a bird with red on the back of the head).
Another question from someone in your reporting area: do you prefer to see a round-up e-mail post of noteworthy observations at the end of the season, or would you rather get messages on an ongoing basis (i.e., "this is the good stuff I saw this season" vs. "yesterday I was at local hotspot X and saw this").
Thanks, and good luck! :)
Hi Jennifer, you're the fifth person to ask me that. Having not compiled any records at all yet, it's hard to say. My plan is to try to catalog the findings as I receive them (or more likely weekly), so you can feel free to send them as you record them. If you prefer the other way, that's fine too.
Just seeing this now...congrats!
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