Peru

This month’s eBirder of the Month challenge, sponsored by Carl Zeiss Sports Optics, will get you out in the field snapping photos and making audio recordings. The eBirder of the Month will be drawn from eBirders who submit 50 media on eligible checklists during August. Winners will be notified by the 10th of the following month. August is one of the quietest times of year for eBirding, but it doesn’t have to be! Birds are doing in the midst of many interesting movements throughout North America and Eurasia, and spring is just around the corner for much of the southern hemisphere. By taking photos and making audio recordings, you’ll help document these interesting finds around the world.

In slightly over two years, the eBird/Macaulay Library partnership has resulted in more than 7.5 million photos and sounds added to eBird checklists and archived in the Macaulay Library. Incredible. This collection has become an unparalleled resource to document bird sightings worldwide, as well as providing an exceedingly valuable dataset for researchers and birders worldwide. As this collection continues to grow, being able to sort out specific photos becomes increasingly important. Learn how to rate images to make your photos as useful as they can be, and explore audio rating guidelines for your sounds.

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. In addition, don’t forget about the 2018 Checklist-a-day Challenge—can you submit 365 eligible checklists this year?

Carl Zeiss Sports Optics is a proven leader in sports optics and is the official optics sponsor for eBird. “We are thrilled to continue our partnership with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and support the vital scientific data being collected by dedicated eBirders.” – Richard Moncrief, Birding and Nature Observation Segment Manager at Carl Zeiss SBE.