[Leica] NWR Bird Counting Plane

[CartersXRd]

If you hunt the gallery and narrative, the plane is piloted by a young woman who was raised in a flying family in Alaska and is currently based in Maine. The guy is a local refuge employee who is trained in counting.

They do areas in platsthat they work through and “count”. A friend who was a trained counter told me the technique that they has to practice at home during training was: Don’t count. Drop popcorn on the rug. Guess how many there are. Count the kernals. Toss popcorn on the rug. Guess the number. Count the kernals. Repeat. Repeat. One of the takeaways was that the inexperienced usually usually guess low by a large margin.

We were joking with the guy counting on this plane about someone distracting him and how often he had to say “Damnit, go back around, lost count.” He said that doesn’t happen, but did mention a recent heavy count on Pea Island that was almost done when a bald eagle flew low over the impoundment and scattered all the bird making him start over. A clicker could not begin to count the tens of thousands of snow geese and tundra swan he will count in a given day.

ric



> On Jan 7, 2022, at 5:18 PM, Sonny Carter via LUG <lug at leica-users.org> wrote:
> 
> One guy to fly the plane and the other with a little clicker in his hand
> enumerating the boids as they fly by?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Sonny
> http://sonc.com <http://sonc.com/look/>
> Natchitoches, Louisiana
> 1714
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> 
> USA
> 
> 
> On Fri, Jan 7, 2022 at 4:04 PM CartersXRd via LUG <lug at leica-users.org>
> wrote:
> 
>> it’s based in Maine and comes down for winter counts here on the Atlantic
>> Flyway
>> 
>> ric
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Jan 7, 2022, at 5:02 PM, Don Dory via LUG <lug at leica-users.org>
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Are you sure you aren't vacationing in Florida?  Floats on a Cessna in
>> the
>>> Carolinas,  ridiculous.
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
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> 
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