Birding News and Features

Patterns from eBird – Cedar Waxwing

The Cedar Waxwing is an abundant and easily recognized bird across much of North America, yet its migration patterns remain poorly understood. This is because across much of the country Cedar Waxwings are present year-round, making influxes of migrants hard to discern. eBird now provides a unique information resource for identifying patterns of species occurrence, since it draws upon a network of tens of thousands of contributors who collect observations throughout the year. Our "Patterns from eBird" feature will highlight and discuss some of the interesting and enlightening natural patterns that can be uncovered using eBird's "View and Explore Data" tools.

 

 

Enter winter season sightings by 13 March

When you submit your sightings to eBird, we make those observations available to researchers, conservationists, and others with an interest in birds. We also provide these records to the authors of North American Birds and regional journals focused on bird distribution. At the end of each season, records for each state are made available for download for authors and editors of these publications. All you need to do to have your fall records (1 December 2009 - 28 February 2010) included is submit them to eBird prior to the 13th of March.

New Feature: eBird State Needs Alert!

We've just launched a new tool that will help birders find new birds at the state level--the eBird State Needs Alert. By subscribing to this alert, you'll get an email alert every day highlighting the birds that have been reported in a state that you haven't seen before. This tool compares all the birds you've reported in a state with the new reports coming in, and then sends you a list of the reports for species that you have not yet personally reported to eBird. This tool will make it easier for you to keep abreast of recent records of birds you might want to see in a given state that might not necessarily be rare enough to make it to the eBird Notable Birds Google Gadget.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology Hosting Young Birders Event

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is excited to once again host The Cornell Lab Young Birders Event, which will be held August 12 - 15 , 2010 in Ithaca, New York. The Young Birders Event aims to bring together teenagers with a passion for birds who are interested in pursing a career with birds. The young birders will meet people who have successful careers that involve birds in a variety of ways from ornithological researchers to tour leaders, to audio specialists and computer scientists. High school aged young birders are invited to fill out our application form and return it for review by April 15th 2010. Ten young birders will be selected and notified in late April. Please share this information with any young birders you know!

eBird's Featured Map

The "eBird Featured Map" shows just how well the aggregated observations of eBirders are doing with describing bird ranges, occurrence changes throughout the seasons and even across different years. Test yourself on the map quiz and in the process, let yourself get lost in the "View and Explore" Data section--this is a great way to answer many questions about bird occurrence. If you want to see the answer to the previous quiz (Map 7), go to the Map 7 answer. To see previous Map Quizzes you can go to the Map of the Week archive. If you still see the old map, click control + refresh to update to the map!