MDBirding Turns 1! Stats galore!

Putting together a full package of MDOsprey and MDBirding posts allowed me to gather the time-stamps from every MD-Listserv post ever sent. This sums to over 81,000 posts from 1997-2013. I made the below charts for my fellow stat-a-holics.

While this chart my seem overwhelming at first, it's actually really informative. A single line represents the number of monthly posts over a given year. By making a color-gradient over time, you can see both trends over time and the yearly 'migration bumps'. The end of 2012 and start to 2013 have been all record months in terms of the volume of posting. For those that want the actual numbers - check out the below table.

Here is just a chart that shows the total sum of posts by year. That 4/5-yr cycle between peaks sure seems a bit odd. I haven't been around long enough to comment, but I wonder if there are reasons for the peaks and valleys - invasion years? rarities? big-years?

This chart shows the sum of posts per day over the last year. You can get a great sense of the variability from day to day. The peaks are fun to examine. 9/9/12 at 63 posts was the highest and quite a few of those posts were about the Triadelphia Sabine's Gull. 11/12/12 was another peak where there were many posts about crossbills, a Western Kingbird, and a 'heated' banding code debate.

This was an interesting one. Who would have thought Monday would top the list? These are averages from 2004-2013.

Expected, but looks like we have a few nightowls!


Did I miss anything you'd like to see? Leave a comment and let me know.