Blog Hiatus for the Next 10+ Years - 01 Jul 1989

This blog post is coming from the future. 01 July 2024 in fact. 

Up until this date of 01 July 1989 all of my blog posts have been created in 2024 and were written using notes and checklists of bird sightings that had been recorded since I took an interest in birds in the spring of 1984. Back then I was an undergrad student at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. 

During the Spring semester of '84 I took a field Biology course w/ Professor Orin Gelderloos that required that we document every flora and fauna (mostly birds and plants) that we came across in the Natural Area adjacent to the Ford Estate in Dearborn, MI. Working as a student security officer (Lake Patrol) gave me a wonderful opportunity to study the plants and birds that I'd be tested on. Notes and observations were kept in a Field Notebook that included dates, descriptions, factoids, etc. I quickly became hooked on birds and birding and would soon grow a passion for bird photography that would last the rest of my days.

I would eventually give my Field Notebook to my younger sibling a few years and she would eventually lose it in an apartment fire years later. Luckily, I had created a master list of "Life Birds" that included species and date first seen, so I was able to use that list in later years to enter bird sightings into eBird.

eBird?

Launched in 2002 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at Cornell University and the National Audubon Society, eBird is a global database that gathers basic data on bird abundance and distribution at a variety of spatial and temporal scales. Imagine everyone on the planet recording their daily bird sightings into an electronic database that compiles the records to give a peak at the global distribution of every known species of bird. Bird enthusiast now have a record of how many bird species they have seen, and can compare these records with everyone else. Rare Birds can be reported almost instantly so that local birders can find/record these birds before they continue on their journey.

eBird came into prominence in the early 2000's when everyone was encouraged to enter their sightings. I was a late adopter, but finally gave in and decided that I would create an eBird checklist for every blog post that I had created since I began blogging (electronic journal) in April 2007. Google Blogger allowed me to have a way of writing a journal and be able to include images / photos; I had a way of being able to create a visual story of my birding adventures. 

But since I didn't start using eBird until almost 2020 I decided to create eBird entries for every blog post that I had created. Starting with my most recent posts I worked backward through the years until I reached April 2007. I then decided to continue creating new blog posts for pre-2007 sightings that had been kept on hand-written sightings or "electronic notebooks" that I had created using Microsoft Word. 

My timeline looks something like this:

1982 - 1984 UM-Dearborn - Field notebooks and Life List

1984 - 1989 Daily notes and bird sightings kept in an electronic journal (Microsoft Word).

1990 - 2001 Birding Hiatus

2001 - 2007 Return to birding and start of bird photography 

2007 - 2020 Start of blogging 

2020 - Present - eBird entries beginning for all new outings and working backward through blog entries.

2024 - Caught up with eBird entries from 1982 - 2024

Why the Bird Hiatus in 1990?

In a word: Life. 

Life happened. Robin and I got married, moved to Wyandotte after several break-ins at our house in Carleton. We would spend our free time remodeling and raising kittens. We both then were encouraged to go back to school for advanced degrees. I was working full-time at BASF and had to take classes during evenings/weekends to get into Grad School. Grad School came and went, then more full-time work until we finally got a handle on living. In 2001 I finally decided to start birding again, and went out and bought new binoculars so that I could take the sport seriously. I would also start getting into photography and spend the next 20 years building a bird photography skill.

So, as of today, July 1st, 1989, I will be stepping away from birding.  Please come back in about 10 years when I return to publish my next blog post.