For all you birders out there, if you aren’t using eBird it’s time to start! eBird is a real-time, online checklist program, revolutionizing the way birders, both amatuer and professional, report and access information about birds. A birder simply enters when, where, and how they went birding, then fills out a checklist of all the birds seen and heard during the outing. Presented by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, eBird is an excellent source of data for researchers and citizen scientists. It provides information on bird abundance and distribution at a variety of spatial and temporal scales. The best part is, you can share your own bird observations with an international network of eBird users, and a global community of educators, land managers, ornithologists, and conservation biologists. The program lets you record the birds you see, keep track of your bird lists, explore dynamic maps and graphs, share your sightings, and contribute to science and conservation. So far, eBird participants have reported more than 9.5 million bird observations across the world! Any contribution made to eBird helps to better understanding of the distribution, richness, and uniqueness of Earth’s biodiversity. (You can see a web video featuring eBird developer Chris Wood on this website, associated with C&C program 4, and also hear about the companion Merlin app which uses eBird data to create an application that’s perfect for newcomers to birding. As Jessie Barry demonstrates, you can identify a bird by its size, shape and color, and even listen to its song. It’s like having an expert birder with you, living in your smartphone!)

http://ebird.org/content/ebird/