Saturday, March 12, 2011

Spring Migration in St. Louis' Forest Park


For 20 years, my friend Randy Korotev kept extensive notes on birds in Forest Park on the west edge of Saint Louis MO. His article, "Counting Warblers; A Timetable for the Spring Songbird Migration Through Saint Louis," with original data is available online or as a PDF. Click on "Bird and Birding Information," then "Timetable for Spring Migration."

I decided to illustrate his data using TimeToast, arbitrarily choosing the year 2009. Just hover the mouse over the balloons to display them. Click once to see text, links, photo, and photo credit. To extend the timeline and see the dates farther apart, slide the control on the bottom in toward the center. In my other set of pajamas, I teach computer at an elementary school. I made a tutorial video for TimeToast if you're interested. Please feel free to use my "Peak Migration TimeToast" for non-commercial purposes.

In addition to this amazing feat of record-keeping and persistence, Randy is a true Renaissance man. I interviewed him about moon rocks last summer and returned to the moon rock story last December. Visit him at his lunar meteorite website!

Below is the list of generous photographers who licensed their photo with Creative Commons so we all could enjoy them.
Fox Sparrow, and Golden-crowned Kinglet, Yellow-throated Warbler by Seabrooke Leckie (See her blog, The Marvelous in Nature)
Winter Wren, and Field Sparrow by Kelly Colgan Azar
Louisiana Waterthrush, by Bill Majoros
Hermit Thrush, by Jamie Chavez
Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Worm-eating Warbler by Jerry Oldenettel
Pine Warbler and Brown Thrasher, by Vicki DeLoach
Prairie Warbler, by Dominic Sherony
Yellow-rumped Warbler by pheanix
Orange-crowned Warbler by Andrew Reding
Prothonotary Warbler by naathas

3 comments:

  1. TimeToast looks like an interesting application - I'll have to see what I can do with it.
    regards--ted

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  2. I enjoy working with it, although my timeline looks better on the TimeToast site because of their wider column. It might be cool to do a timeline for Mrs. Ples and her Australopithecus relatives, but unfortunately TimeToast doesn't support dates in BC.

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  3. That data is pretty amazing! Thanks for checking it out.

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