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Birding News and Features

Planned eBird Outage

July 23, 2008

eBird will be down from approximately 5am - 9am Eastern Time on Thursday July 24th. This is due to a major version upgrade of one of our Oracle databases. Thanks for your patience and understanding. Good Birding -- Team eBird.

New Location Management Tools Launched!

July 15, 2008

When eBird started in 2002 we didn't have the technology to allow you to select a location from a map for data entry (we do now--hooray!). Because of that it was harder to be aware of existing eBird hotspots, and many users created their own versions of these places. We've been asked for a long time to rectify this by creating tools that will allow you to merge your personal locations, and all associated data, with existing eBird hotspots. We've recently upgraded the "Manage My Locations" option found under "My eBird" to allow for this, along with a suite of other useful data management tools. Now you can easily combine your data from a duplicate personal location with eBird hotspots so that it can be shared by all.

eBird Map of the Week #8

July 15, 2008

We're pleased to introduce a new feature--the eBird map of the week. Early each week we will put up a map taken directly from eBird and you try to guess the species. After a week, we will post answers to the old "map quiz" and include a map for a new species. This map is taken directly from the Maps section in the View and Explore Data tab. The current map (Map #8) is taken for all years, but is limited to the winter season (December - February). Good luck! If you still see last week's map, hit Control Refresh (or F5) to reload the new map image.

Make Your Checklists More Meaningful!

July 09, 2008

As the eBird database grows by leaps and bounds, it is becoming ever more valuable. Your observations are making a huge difference in our understanding of birds at many levels. Our scientists are now analyzing your data to find new patterns in bird distribution, abundance and population trends. Although every record submitted to eBird is valuable, only observations with effort can be used in these more rigorous analyses, so we would like to promote several bird survey techniques that we consider most valuable in this regard. Make the most of your birding by conducting traveling counts, stationary counts and area counts in a more meaningful way. In this feature we'll give examples of how to make your observations count for bird conservation!

St. Paul Island Birding Blog

July 09, 2008

Saint Paul Island is located 770 miles southwest of Anchorage in the east-central portion of the Bering Sea. A remote volcanic island within the Pribilof Island chain, Saint Paul is the most accessible of the central Bering Sea islands. It is a haven for birders who are searching for rare birds which stray to the islands from the Old World. While it is not as close to the Russian mainland as the other Alaskan outposts, its location in the middle of the sea hundreds of miles from all other land makes it a remarkable location to see birds. For the summer I will be working as a tour guide for those people who visit this island either to look for rare Asian birds, look for common breeders which are scarce elsewhere, or simply come to enjoy the wildflowers and seals that also call this island home. For the entire season, May 19^th to about October 15^th, I will continue to keep a daily or semi-daily log of the bird activity on the island whenever time and internet access allows. Contributed by Scott Schuette.