National events ended up taking on a larger role than anticipated on this trip. Be sure to see Part 1. The objective in going to Buchanan county was to assist the birders living in the area with the monumental task of surveying the priority blocks of the county. Counties with more residents, and therefore more birders, are well covered after four years of atlassing, but counties with fewer residents still need more volunteer effort.

Priority Blocks require a certain amount of attention before being considered “complete.” Once complete, no more effort is required in that block and atlassers are meant to focus their attention elsewhere. Of course if one happens to notice breeding confirmation in a “complete” block, one should still enter it. For example, the block Susan and I live in is considered complete but when we found a red-shouldered hawk nest in the neighborhood, we still added it. The 2020 summer blockbusting completion criteria are:

1. Daytime survey effort – a minimum of 8 hours of birding
2. Breeding species list – 60+ potential breeders
3. Breeding codes – 60% of species in either the probable or confirmed breeding category
4. Nocturnal effort –one hour of effort (ideally one spring visit for owls and one summer visit for nightjars)
5. Habitats – visit all major habitat types present in block

With these in mind, the first three blocks in the table were identified for the week’s focus. I would also visit additional blocks as time permitted with Prater SE being a block that might get extra focus.

The table will be completed in a future post See. This effort will also include a nighttime nightjar survey of those blocks except for Patterson SE because another birder has performed surveys in the block but they are not yet in the data set.