Birding News and Features

Winter Bird Atlas Begins Fourth Year-Rusty Blackbird Targeted

The Louisiana Winter Bird Atlas begins its fourth sampling period January 10th and continues for six weeks ending February 20th. Many quads have exceeded the completion threshold and others are waiting for their first checklist to be submitted.

This year we are asking observers to help out with the Rusty Blackbird Blitz. Rusties have declined precipitously in recent history and biologists have asked for our help to gather pieces to the puzzle. Louisiana has a significant wintering population of Rusty Blackbirds so we're stepping up to do our part.

Summer Bird Atlas, get it while it's hot!

It’s hard to believe we are starting the third season of the Louisiana Summer Bird Atlas, but it's that time again. Many of you have developed an appreciation for your quads and others have explored far and wide while gathering atlas data. Either way, your data are appreciated and will be used for many, many years to come.

Remember, the threshold for quad completion is only ten hours for the Summer Bird Atlas. These ten hours should be primarily in the morning when most birds are singing. Save the aquatic areas for later in the day when birds are less vocal. There are six weeks to gather data so get your calendar and map out and plan your quad surveys. 

Last year we found some amazing birds during the Summer Atlas. I wonder what we'll find this year.

Good luck and be safe.

Winter Bird Atlas: Third Year Begins January 10th

With Christmas Bird Counts completed and birders primed, the third year of the Louisiana Winter Bird Atlas begins January 10th. We welcome back all the hard-working volunteers that have put so much energy into the atlas. We are truly inspired by the quality and dedication of Louisiana birders.

New to the atlas and want to get involved? You can check out the project description and instructions at the Louisiana Bird Resource Center website by visiting the atlas web pages here.

The short story is this: if you can identify Louisiana birds -even if they're just the neighborhood birds- you can help us document the distribution and abundance of wintering birds in Louisiana.

Come on out, winter's great!

Welcome to the Louisiana Bird Atlas

The Louisiana Bird Atlas is a project developed by the Louisiana Bird Resource Center at LSU using the eBird framework developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. The Louisiana Bird Atlas is one of several eBird portals that provide a simple way for birders to keep track of the birds they see anywhere in North America. The LWBA program will generate maps of relative abundance of birds in the state during late winter and early summer. To do this the Atlas follows a more specific protocol than eBird, borrowing the familiar, standard CBC methodology in terms of party-hours and party-miles to generate indices of relative abundance, and apply these to 7.5 minute USGS Quadrangle survey units, which are roughly one third as large as a CBC circle. It requests a minimum of twenty party-hours (total; not necessarily all in same day or year) is necessary to characterize a quad in the winter and ten morning hours for the summer period. These can be distributed in any way within the 6-week survey periods over the three year project duration. In fact, the same areas can be resampled multiple times as long as the numbers of birds are calibrated by party-hours and party-miles. More information about the Louisiana Bird Atlas, including how to participate, can be found here.