Birding News and Features

eBird gets a supercomputing kick from TeraGrid

Thanks to your continued participation the data analysis potential of eBird is growing rapidly. Through collaboration with partners in the DataONE network at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, eBird was recently awarded 100,000 hours of supercomputing time on the National Science Foundation’s TeraGrid system. This powerful computer system will help Lab scientists and colleagues model bird migration phenology at the population level based on eBird data. The process will involve combining bird observations with remotely sensed variables such as landcover and greening index to predict bird movements and to explore how migration timing might change under different climate scenarios. This exciting story was recently profiled in Nature.

eBird Patterns: Eastern Phoebe Migration

The previous “Patterns from eBird” featured animated maps of Northern Cardinal based on predictive modeling. This time we’ll take a look at how these maps predict migration in Eastern Phoebe, a widespread eastern species. Eastern Phoebe is the hardiest flycatcher in the United States and Canada, and in some areas it returns to the breeding grounds more than a month earlier than any other flycatcher. Its wintering range is largely within the United States, so these animated maps reveal its entire annual cycle.

Saving a Rare Songbird – Hemispheric Conservation Plan for Bicknell’s Thrush Released

An international conservation group today unveiled a plan to protect one of North America’s most rare and vulnerable songbirds, the Bicknell’s thrush, across its entire range from Canada to the Caribbean.

The International Bicknell’s Thrush Conservation Group (IBTCG), an alliance of scientists, conservationists and governments, proposes to increase the global population of Bicknell’s thrush by 25 percent over the next 50 years, mostly by preventing further loss of its breeding and wintering habitats.

New App Developed in Vermont has High Hopes of Helping Haiti

The vibrant painting of Haiti’s national bird, the Hispaniolan Trogon, glowing on the iPhone screen and its “cock-crow” call rolling from the speaker offer a stark contrast to the aftermath of January’s disastrous earthquake in Haiti. But the partners that joined together to create The Birds of Haiti and the Dominican Republic iPhone and iPod Touch application hope that a bit of avian beauty will raise much-needed funds for humanitarian aid in Haiti.

“With nearly 100 million birders in North America alone, we hope this will be a way for all of us to easily contribute to Haitian earthquake relief efforts and learn about the island’s amazing birdlife at the same time,” said Vermont Center for Ecostudies biologist Kent McFarland, who hatched the idea.

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.

Records of Vermont Birds Historic Data: Help!

From 1974 until 2004, bird sightings in Vermont were collected by birders and sent to a project called Records of Vermont Birds at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science. A corps of dedicated volunteers assembled the information into a statewide summary each season that was printed and mailed to birders.  All of the original records were archived in boxes for the historical record.  The 30 years of data undoubtedly hold many conservation and scientific discoveries, but the lack of a computer database for retrieval of these data has proven to be a roadblock to examining them for years, not to mention the inability to save these records in event of a catastrophe such as fire or flood. The Vermont Institute of Natural Science has now joined the other Vermont eBird affiliates. They have provided us with all of the Records of Vermont Birds historic data to be entered into the Vermont eBird database. We need your help!