What does it mean to be a Block Owner?
Responsibilities of owning a block include:
- Adequately surveying your block for all breeding bird species
- Confirming the breeding status of as many species as possible
- Organizing and regularly submitting data from your block
- Providing additional details such as written documentation, photos, or sketches for observations of unusual, threatened, or endangered species
By signing up to "own" an Atlas block, you are committing your time as an Atlas volunteer to survey your block during the Atlas survey period (2006-2010). Your responsibilities as a block owner are complete when your block receives adequate survey coverage. Survey coverage for each block will require 25 hours of field observation AND the documentation of approximately 90% of an expected species total for priority blocks and 75% of the expected total in non-priority blocks. A list of expected species totals in each block will be posted to the Atlasing Materials page of this website. Lists of species recorded during the 1st atlas will be accessible through the Cornell atlasing application.
Block coverage-goals simply act as a way to manage Atlas survey effort. We encourage Atlas volunteers to work on new blocks so that we can achieve our goal of surveying all Atlas blocks in Ohio. Even if a block is considered "complete", you or other Atlas volunteers may continue to submit data for that block to fill gaps for species that were not initially detected or confirmed as breeding. This is especially important if certain less common species or species of conservation interest (Code 1R, 2, and 3 species) are missing from the block list when they should be present.
The Cornell Atlasing Application Click here will allow you to view atlas blocks in Ohio, the current status of each block, and species lists that were recorded in blocks during the first and current atlas projects.