COUNTING BUTTERFLYS - The Alberta Monster
Barb Beck
barb at birdnut.obtuse.com
Tue Sep 4 14:49:24 EDT 2001
Hi,
I really need to point out that Norbert Kondla was dead wrong on a couple
points he made concerning the Alberta butterfly counts
The Alberta monster was created by much more than work done by my husband
and I and a bunch of volunteer compilers and counters. It is based on some
good books which allow amateur naturalists to learn relatively easily how to
identify our butterflies. The key is that we have books which show our
regional forms of the butterflies and field marks which work here. General
books which try to only describe a species by its general characteristics
ignoring or downplaying subspecies or in our case several probable species
which have been lumped for convenience just frustrate beginner and
intermediate butterfly watchers. We have books that can for the most part
allow us to identify the field identifiable forms we meet in our butterfly
counts.
Our first book was a great little book to start with, Butterflies of
Alberta, which was published about 10 years ago by our very own Nature Nut,
John Acorn In it part of the butterflies are photographed in natural poses
and the rest depicted by line drawings. He started our provincial butterfly
counts and started us butterflying the way we do today with a combination
of nets and binoculars. He even went so far as to promote a method devised
by Carroll Perkins to convert compact binoculars into close focus binoculars
for butterflying before close focus butterfly binoculars were generally
available. Johns book has sold between 6000 and 7000 copies - pretty good
interest from such a small province. That book was followed shortly by an
excellent book by Charlie Bird, Norbert Kondla, Felix Sperling, Jerry
Hilchie and Ted Pike, Alberta Butterflies, which describes all of our
butterflies and describes the forms we are likely to encounter. For the
first time we had pictures of all of our butterflies. It is a valuable asset
and the main reference most of us use. The monster is currently being fed
even more by hard work done on another book by Chris Guppy and Jon Shepard,
The Butterflies of British Columbia , which covers most of the Alberta
butterflies. Because this book carefully illustrates the subspecies of the
butterflies, our specific form or forms are illustrated in the book giving
us another excellent reference. These people put in a lot of time to create
regional books for us so we can start to learn what took them years and
years of patient study and collecting to master. People do not make money
off such books they are labours of love and essentially these guys are
important volunteers behind the Alberta Monster. I can only imagine the
work it took these people to sort out our species without having their books
as a reference. Just as Peterson's field guides stimulated birders to get
out and learn their birds these books have done that for Albertans.
Furthermore the authors of our butterfly books particularly Norbert Kondla
and John Acorn have gone out of their way answer questions and identify
specimens and pictures of butterflies which stumped participants. Many of
the authors including Norbert participate in our mailing list and are our
online help desk.
The second point on which Norbert is wrong on is that we do not have 36
counts, we have a few more 8-)
Cheers
Barb Beck
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Barb.Beck at ualberta.ca
-----Original Message-----
From: Kondla, Norbert FOR:EX [mailto:Norbert.Kondla at gems3.gov.bc.ca]
Sent: August 31, 2001 2:08 PM
To: 'rjparcelles at yahoo.com'; VA-MD-DE-Bugs at yahoogroups.com; LEPSrUS;
Butterfly-Pixs
Cc: Leps-List; Audubon Chat List; Tim Adams; Clay Black; John Calhoun;
Patricia Cracraft; KeithSueEllen Kelver; Shirley Don Koerner; Sue
Kralojansky; Hattie Lee; Kevin Murrell; Lynda Roger Peters; Laura Schmidt;
Anna Terry; Pamela Traas; Bonnie Valentine; Dixie Vassiliou; Lois Weber;
Richard Mae Wiggins; 'altabugs'; 'Barb'
Subject: RE: COUNTING BUTTERFLYS By Tim Adams
Hi Bob. Yes it is great that more and more people are getting out to enjoy
butterflies and I am a keen supporter of butterfly counts due to the many
good things that come from this activity. However I want to spark a little
friendly rivalry and also recognize the work being done along these lines in
Alberta, Canada. Please bear with me and do not take this as criticism. I
read the article you referenced with interest. I saw with interest that it
referred to 421 counts in the USA and then made passing reference to
"several" counts in Canada. No sale on the picture painted by this info :-)
My understanding is that this year the province of Alberta will have about
36 counts to report on and I think that the numbers have also been
substantial the past few years. So this province with a tiny little
population has been able to produce almost 10% of the counts produced in an
entire country with a population more than 100 times its size. This is a
stirling achievement that needs to be recognized. My hat is off to Barb Beck
and others who have been leading the charge on butterfly counts in that
province. So is there another state or province that has the work ethic and
energy to even approach the results achieved by our friends in Alberta,
Canada :-) I do not live in Alberta but the guantlet has been dropped anyway
:-) Have a good weekend, one and all.
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Parcelles,Jr. [mailto:rjparcelles at yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, August 31, 2001 12:38 PM
To: VA-MD-DE-Bugs at yahoogroups.com; LEPSrUS; Butterfly-Pixs
Cc: Leps-List; Audubon Chat List; Tim Adams; Clay Black; John Calhoun;
Patricia Cracraft; KeithSueEllen Kelver; Shirley Don Koerner; Sue
Kralojansky; Hattie Lee; Kevin Murrell; Lynda Roger Peters; Laura
Schmidt; Anna Terry; Pamela Traas; Bonnie Valentine; Dixie Vassiliou;
Lois Weber; Richard Mae Wiggins
Subject: COUNTING BUTTERFLYS By Tim Adams
Hi,
Check out NATURE POTPOURRI ISSUE # 32 for an excellent article
on Butterfly Counting by Tim Adams...lots of other bug stuff
too!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naturepotpourri/messages
naturepotpourri-subscribe at yahoogroups.com
=====
Bob Parcelles, Jr
Pinellas Park, FL
rjparcelles at yahoo.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naturepotpourri
http://rainforest.care2.com/welcome?w=976131876
"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin."
--William Shakespeare
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