Welcome to eBird Caribbean!

eBird is designed to serve the needs of birders, scientists and conservationists. Birders can use the application to record and manage observations of birds in their backyard, local park or wetland or from all over their country or Caribbean region. eBird can also be used to monitor birds in particular areas, such as National Parks, Reserves, Ramsar sites (Wetlands of International Importance), or Important Bird Areas (IBAs), by conducting counts at regular intervals to gather data on threatened birds, endemics, resident and migratory birds. Four protocols are built into the application that allow scientists to use eBird as a tool to gather data in a more rigorous way. All eBird sightings become part of a huge database that anyone can explore using maps and charts. The shared information makes it much easier to understand patterns of bird distribution and how they are changing over time.

eBird is a powerful tool for data management.  Users can record their observations and keep track of their individual effort while contributing to a permanent archive of observational data. All eBird projects feed into a unified database where data can be analyzed at scales never before imaginable. We can watch the entire population of Black-throated Blue Warblers move from their breeding grounds to their wintering areas in the Caribbean and over time look at changes in migratory movements, distribution and abundance.

Check out the current data for distribution of Black-throated Blue Warblers (which spend the winter in the Caribbean) here (click on map).

The visualizations available in eBird allow users to explore the observations of all birds at a location or to focus on a single species. Check out the "Frequency" graph for Black-throated Blue Warblers in the URL above showing the strong migratory peaks when looking at data across North America. These kinds of visualizations can be generated for areas of all sizes, from Parishes, Parks, and Important Bird Areas, down to the scale of someone's backyard.

The most amazing thing about eBird is that it feeds directly into a larger monitoring project at the Cornell Lab or Ornithology called the Avian Knowledge Network (AKN). This project is designed to join together all observation data being gathered across the Western Hemisphere in a unified database where users can download the raw data for analysis through a variety of access portals. The web site explains the goals and methods of the AKN.

eBird focuses on integration. Data from the Caribbean can be analyzed together with those from elsewhere in a particular species range. eBird applications feed into the same database which makes this kind of synthesis and synergy possible. 

eBird is easy to use. To get started, register as a new user (it only takes a minute) and submit your first checklist. To learn more about using eBird, click on "About eBird" and check out the links and tutorial. Observations are welcome from birders of all levels. Take your binoculars, head outside, and happy birding!