Method

To verify that the 2012 Razorbill movement was unprecedented we used some eBird data but mostly relied upon an analysis of the entire National Audubon Society database of all CBC Christmas Bird Counts, going back 114 years to 1900, including every Razorbill ever reported on any CBC, in both the USA, Canada and France (2 CBCs in the French-owned Saint-Pierre et Miquelon Islands have reported Razorbills!).

After this CBC analysis pointed toward the northern Gulf of Maine and the Bay of Fundy as one possible source of many of the Razorbills which wintered in and around Florida, we focused the next steps on that GOM/BOF area...

To verify our working hypothesis and its chain of correlated changes, we searched for any published or personally communicated data showing 2012 numbers which supported the hypothesis, and its multiple points. Data for 2012 is relatively recent and some of it is unpublished thus far, but the October 2013 RARGOM Annual Science Meeting had several relevant presentations and papers which provided 2012 data which was found to directly support the hypothesis. Other 2012 data was found during our 2014 search and networking with researchers, and it strengthened the hypothesis.

The result of this approach is a partially verified and testable working hypothesis which can be verified further as more 2012 data (about multiple components of the marine ecosystem in the GOM/BOF area) becomes available over the next few years.