Thank you for your contributions to eBird. Your everyday bird observations help support our shared understanding of birds, biodiversity, and our natural world—providing value to birders, researchers, conservationists, and others around the world.
We’re absolutely delighted to share exciting news about your eBird sightings from Africa. We’ve just finished a two-year collaboration to develop a pathway from eBird into the African Bird Atlas Project—a continent-wide effort to gather bird observations used to support research and conservation efforts.
In total, 183,527 eBird checklists have been converted into 62,050 ABAP trip cards! This has resulted in a total increase of 16% trip cards in ABAP, including an 29,960%(!) increase in Egypt, 1,869% increase in Uganda, and a 747% increase in Tanzania. Checklists submitted to eBird in areas with regional ABAP projects, like the South African Bird Atlas Project 2 (SABAP2), Kenya Bird Map (KBM), and the Nigerian Bird Atlas Project (NiBAP) will automatically contribute to those local projects when they follow the ABAP data requirements.
Green is new data contributed to the Africa Bird Atlas Project from eBird checklists.
Moving forward, you can contribute your checklists to both eBird AND ABAP, as long as you contribute your checklists to eBird in a way that follows the ABAP data requirements. You don’t have to do anything else beyond contributing your eBird checklists and they’ll be automatically converted for you. Every checklist you do is an opportunity for twice the value. To increase the value of your data for both ABAP and for other research and conservation applications, we recommend breaking up long checklists into shorter complete checklists.
Thank you to everyone on the African Bird Atlas Project teams who have helped make this possible, and to the tens of thousands of eBirders whose data are more useful than ever. We appreciate your contributions, and look forward to seeing what’s next.
