We are pleased to announce the 2014 eBirder of the Month program sponsored by Carl Zeiss Sports Optic. Each month we will feature a new eBird challenge and set of selection criteria. The monthly winners will each receive a new ZEISS Conquest HD 8×42 binocular and a selection of books from another great eBird sponsor, Princeton University Press. Read on to find out more about this month’s contest, including details about this month’s selection criteria.
Carl Zeiss Sports Optics is a proven leader in sports optics and is the official optics sponsor for eBird. “Carl Zeiss feels strongly that by partnering with the Cornell Lab we can provide meaningful support for their ability to carry out their research, conservation, and education work around the world,” says Mike Jensen, President of Carl Zeiss Sports Optics, North America. “The Cornell Lab is making a difference for birds, and from the highest levels of our company we’re committed to promoting birding and the Lab’s work, so there’s a great collaboration. eBird is a truly unique and synergistic portal between the Lab and birders, and we welcome the opportunity to support them both.”
Princeton University Press publishes many of the best books about birds and natural history, including the popular new “Warbler Guide” from Tom Stephenson and Scott Whittle. “We are delighted to be able to support the Cornell Lab’s innovative and ambitious range of programs in science and conservation,” says Robert Kirk at PUP. “The rapid expansion of eBird has had a major impact on our understanding of bird populations and movements in North America and beyond, and is a testament to the Lab’s commitment to game-changing citizen science.”
To help promote eBird throughout the Americas, Zeiss is also offering two binoculars as awards for our eBird portals in Argentina, Chile, Central America, the Caribbean and Mexico. To continue their support for young birders, Zeiss is also offering two binoculars for eBirders currently enrolled in school who submit checklists to the Young Birders Network. Watch each of these portals for more information about how winners will be selected.
January 2014 eBirder of the Month Criteria
Building upon the success of the “One-a-Day eBird Challenge” initiated and developed by Birding is Fun, this month’s winner will be selected from users who have submitted an average of at least one complete checklist each day during the month of January. Each checklist will count as one submission, so the more checklists you enter, the greater your chances of winning. This month’s challenge emphasizes the importance of repeated counts, no matter where you are, every day of the year.
Here’s how it will work. We will draw a checklist at random that was submitted during January 2014. If that user has submitted at least 31 effort-based checklists that report all species detected that month including that checklist, they win. If not, we keep drawing checklists until we find an eBird user that meets the criteria. We will also review all checklists entered by the winner to ensure they reflect an accurate, good-faith effort to sample the birds on each checklist.
Once again, please join us in thanking Carl Zeiss Sports Optics and Princeton University Press for making this possible.
And thanks to our friends at Birding is Fun and Nemesis Bird who have developed and promoted the idea of the One-a-Day eBird Challenge.
Good eBirding!