Birding News and Features
Great Backyard Bird Count 2010
Don’t forget to join the 13th annual Great Backyard Bird Count taking place February 12-15. Please enter your tallies on the GBBC website in addition to eBird. You’ll be part of a focused continentwide effort to gather as many observations as possible about where the birds are wintering and in what numbers. Participants tallied 620 species in the 2009 count and sent in more than 93,600 checklists, a new record! Tweet about what birds you’re seeing and use the #gbbc hashtag to have your comments show up in the Twitter widget on the GBBC home page. Watch reports coming in via the website’s maps and upload images for the photo contest. Just by participating in the GBBC you’ll be entered into a drawing for great prizes. The GBBC is a joint project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society with new Canadian partner, Bird Studies Canada and sponsorship from Wild Birds Unlimited.
Guidelines for Reporting Sensitive Species
As birders, we all love to see owls--they are beautiful, fascinating, and generally hard to come by. An encounter with an owl can be among the most memorable of birding experiences. In many places, however, roosting owls are vulnerable to disturbance, particularly in areas where owls are scarce and people are abundant! When owls are flushed from their secretive roosting spots they are frequently ‘mobbed’ by crows and jays, creating lots of commotion in the process, and drawing attention to species that rely on their cryptic plumage to help hide them from potential predators. If mobbing occurs frequently, the owls may abandon the roosting site. In the worst-case scenario, a larger predator like a Red-tailed Hawk or Great Horned Owl may be alerted to the presence of the smaller owls, and prey upon them. We use owls as an example of what might be considered a ‘sensitive species’, but these can change locally and regionally. So what steps should we take to avoid disturbing owls and sensitive species in general? And how does that relate to reporting these birds to eBird?
Participate in the Second Annual Rusty Blackbird Blitz!
Populations of Rusty Blackbirds are crashing! Their numbers have plummeted by as much as 88-98% over the last few decades, according to data gathered between 1966 and 2006 for the North American Breeding Bird Survey and Christmas Bird Count. A species that was once considered to be abundant is rapidly disappearing before our eyes. Your observations can help save this species by arming scientists with critical information about its ecology. The Rusty Blackbird Working Group has developed the Rusty Blackbird Blitz, a winter survey whose goal is to count Rusty Blackbirds range-wide just prior to spring migration. From 30 January - 15 February, search for Rusty Blackbirds in your area and report your observations to eBird. Click the image at right to learn more.
Subscribe to eBird Alerts!
We are very excited to introduce a new feature: eBird Alerts! By going to the eBird Alerts page from "View and Explore Data" you can view a list of all the national-level rarities recently reported in North America and Canada. These are defined by the ABA Codes, which we explain below. You have the option to subscribe hourly (!), daily, or just to visit this page and click to see the results from the past seven days. In the near future, we hope to add similar alerts for birds you "need" (i.e., birds not already on your eBird list) for a given state or province. So please, sign up for our ABA Alerts to keep up on what rarities--like Ivory Gulls--are being reported around the country!
eBirder of the Month: David Suddjian
Below we continue our new feature: "eBirder of the Month". The goal is to highlight how an individual is using eBird to inspire others to follow in their footsteps. One does not need to be a well-traveled or expert birder to be featured. Anyone who uses eBird is eligible, provided she or he understands the overarching goals of eBird and is committed to using the program regularly and properly. We are particularly interested in featuring people who are participating in our eBird Site Survey or County Birding initiatives. If you know of a candidate for the next eBirder of the month, please contact us. We are proud to introduce David Suddjian of Santa Cruz County, California as the January 2010 eBirder of the month. Congratulations David!
Map of the Week
The "Map of the Week" 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 6), go to the Map 6 answer. To see previous Map Quizzes you can go to the Map of the Week archive.
eBird & Birds of North America Online
Two new ways to make your birding count!
New iPhone App harnesses the power of eBird--Check out BirdsEye!
Bluebird Technology announces eBird support for 'Bird Journal'
Bird Journal is designed to be an enjoyable way to record bird sightings for PCs, focusing on ease of use, without compromising on features. Multiple taxonomies are pre-installed, including those from American Birding Association (ABA), American Ornithologists' Union (AOU), Cornell (Clements) and Les Christidis & Walter Boles (CSIRO). Graphs are automatically generated showing interesting statistics from stored data, and a photo gallery showcases all the photos added to the journal. Bird Journal is customizable too, adapting itself to the data you want to record. eBird export makes it easy to upload and import sightings. There is built-in support for eBird required fields such as Protocol and Effort. Records can be exported individually or as a batch to eBird record format.
Enter "Fall Season" sightings by 13 December
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 August 2009 - 30 November 2009) included is submit them to eBird prior to the 13th of December.
eBird Map Quiz #6
We're pleased to bring back the eBird Map Quiz. Periodically we will put up a map taken directly from eBird and you can try to guess the species. After a while, 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 and includes all eBird data from all months from 1900 - 2009. Good luck! If you still see the last map, hit Control Refresh (or F5) to reload the new map image.
Minor change to eBird Top100
Those of you that keep a close watch on the eBird Top100 may have noticed a change this past week. It may have seemed that the numbers suddenly changed last Friday. In actuality though, all we did was change the default on the year selector in the top right. While it previously defaulted to "All Years", it now defaults to the current year. If you want to see who has the best All Time list, just use that selector box to select All years. The reason we did this was because we wanted to keep all active eBirders involved in the Top100 lists--year lists can be competitive for anyone, but a lifetime list takes a lifetime to accumulate. In any event, don't be alarmed by this change, just select the period you want to check.
EZBird--enter eBird checklists by email!
One of the most frequent requests we get from eBirders is for a way to make data entry easier and quicker. We have done our best to develop new quicker ways to enter data and to publicize new and quicker ways that others have developed. To that end, we are excited to announce the release of EZBird, which allows you to create an uploadable file just by sending a formatted email message. You can even submit directly to eBird, which makes it possible to use your handheld or smartphone to enter sightings from the field.
Sale on neotropical audio CDs
Exposing eBird Species Comments
eBird has two comments fields that can be used however you choose. Checklist comments can be personal comments on the day, where you went, or what the weather was like, and this is also a great place for personal notes. The second field, species comments, is very useful for providing additional detail on the rare birds you see, helping others to find a bird you discover, or generally for providing more information on specific sightings within a checklist. Team eBird is committed to making eBird data as useful as possible and as we develop new ways to push eBird data out to birders, this free text field will become increasingly important. However, since everyone may use this field differently, we wanted to give a heads up. Starting in a few weeks, we plan to make your species comments available through new output tools (not the checklist comments) along with the date, location, and count of species you observe.
eBird is for Every Birder!
Occasionally we hear about birders who tried eBird once, but then did not return because they felt they were not qualified to contribute, or that eBird caters only to “expert” birders. This is not the case at all! At eBird we believe that all bird observations have value. You need not be a globetrotting expert—some of the most valuable checklists are repeated observations from people who have never looked for birds outside their own backyard! You need not know every bird that flashes through your binoculars either, the eBird data quality process guards against many potential identification errors. Furthermore, the exchange of information between experts and beginners during this process is a valuable learning tool. We want eBird to be used by birders of all skill levels: our only request is that you try to use eBird to its fullest capacity, report the birds you see and hear to the best of your ability, and err on the conservative side if you are unsure about your identification.
Data entry overload? Learn eBird tricks and tips!
Be an eBird rep - Give an eBird talk to your birding friends
As eBird Project Leaders, we would like nothing more than to be able to visit each corner of the Western Hemisphere to provide a 'hands-on' eBird experience for local groups (and to do some birding!). We've found that one-on-one contact with potential users, as well as through giving eBird presentations to target audiences, can really help eBird become established locally. But the reality is that there are many more local birding organizations than we could ever hope to visit in person. To remedy this we've done two things: the first is making two eBird powerpoints available to our users so that they can help spread the eBird word at the local level. The second is opening up an online eBird presentation forum, whereby we can give virtual eBird presentations to groups via the Internet. Read more about how to help spread the eBird gospel in your area.
Location! Location! Location!
Exactly where you plot your birding locations on the map is critical for eBird in many ways. When you are specific with your location information we can perform better analyses, and we can ensure that your birding lists are built correctly. eBird thrives on location specificity, and a good general rule of thumb when entering data is that it's always better to enter shorter checklists from more refined locations than longer checklists from a string of unrelated locations. In this article we'll discuss why being as precise as possible with your birding locations yields the best results.
