Birding News and Features

Got White-winged Crossbills?

Within the last month, White-winged Crossbills have started to irrupt into the Northeast and Upper Midwest in large numbers. During the four days between the 22nd and 25th of November there were over 75 observations of White-winged Crossbills submitted to eBird. Among these were reports from as far south as Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey and Maryland. While most observations have been of small groups, there have been many sightings of flocks numbering 40-75 birds. The most amazing sighting comes from Dave Tetlow who observed some 1785 White-winged Crossbills while he conducted a stationary count for two and a half hours at Hamlin Beach State Park in Upstate New York. During this time most birds were seen heading east into the 10 mph ESE wind. You may be thinking, "well, that's just lovely, but how can I find them? Where can I look?" Read on.

Submit Red Knot, Piping Plover, and Roseate Tern sightings—Your eBird Data may aid conservation!

If you have ever seen these species, consider entering some of your old observations this winter--the birds themselves may benefit directly. These species are imperiled and proposed wind farm development along the East Coast could be devastating to their populations, depending on how many birds the turbines kill annually. By combining your records and those of thousands of eBirders, we will be able to analyze the data with other scientific datasets to better describe the exact migratory timing, areas of importance for breeding, feeding, migration, and pre-migratory staging. Read on for more information.

eBird & Flickr -- Share Your Bird Photos

You will notice that the eBird home page now includes several "thumbnail" images of rare birds that have been submitted to eBird. A few months ago we created a group within the popular photo-sharing site, Flickr. We received many requests from users who wanted be able to upload images of birds that they have photographed. This is particularly true for rarities (birds seen outside their normal range, or at an odd time of year). Our intent with this group is to provide a venue for people to photographically document species seen outside their normal range, outside their normal seasonal occurrence, or unexpectedly large counts of birds. The most recent images now appear on the eBird home page.

New Feature--eBird Checklist Sharing!

Do you have a group of birding friends that are all devoted eBird users? Has it been frustrating that each of you has to enter your joint birdwalks into eBird separately? We are very excited to release eBird Checklist Sharing, which now allows you to copy checklists to another user’s account with the click of a mouse. From now on, when you go birding with friends you can designate who will be keeping the list and that person can enter the eBird list for the group. That checklist can be shared with the group using just an email address or eBird username. And once a checklist has been shared, you can add or delete species observed so that the list represents just what YOU saw. Read on for more information.

Help Scientists Track Rusty Blackbird Migration!

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 migration ecology. Last spring we conducted a pilot study with the Rusty Blackbird Working Group where eBirders collected migration data over a one week period.  While the data collected were excellent, we found that short  survey window to be inadequate for gathering data from across much of the species' route. So this year we're broadening the net!  Birders across North America are asked to help scientists by recording Rusty Blackbirds during the entire fall migration period using eBird. Your observations of this species can help fill in the important missing pieces of this conservation puzzle!