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A project of Bird Studies Canada and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Why Birds?. Birds can be used as “ bio-indicators ” to help assess the health of our ecosystems. Occupy nearly all habitats. Prey upon, plants, animals and insects. Concentrate pesticides and chemical loads.
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A project of Bird Studies Canada and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Why Birds? Birds can be used as “bio-indicators” to help assess the health of our ecosystems • Occupy nearly all habitats • Prey upon, plants, animals and insects • Concentrate pesticides and chemical loads • Are readily visible to the public • Are already being monitored every day, and have been for many years!
Impacts of Citizen Science Christmas Bird Count • Since 1900 • From 25 to 2000 count circles over 100 years • Currently 50,000 participants Breeding Bird Survey • Since 1966 • From 600 to 3700 routes over 40 years • Several thousand participants
How is eBird Different? • Hemispheric-scale monitoring program • All species • Year-round • Advanced geo-referencing • Broad user-base
What is eBird? Gather • Internet-based checklist program • Tool for gathering observational data • Tool for maintaining personal records Archive • Persistent archive of bird observations • Gathers baseline data on birddistribution and abundance Disseminate • Public tool for data visualization • Avian Knowledge Network
eBird—Current Stats (2009) • ~35,000 different users have entered data • ~540,000 site visitors • 173 countries/territories • >1,600,000 checklists submitted • 2,945 species reported • 21 million observations reported
eBird Canada—Current Stats (2009) • 600+ participants submitting checklists • 216,426 checklists submitted • 1,716,496 observations reported • 552 species
Geographic Coverage CurrentNorth AmericaCaribbeanCentral America South America New Zealand
Encouraging Participation - Portals Applied (BCN) eBird National(eBird Canada) Local (Vermont)
eBird—Building the eBird Community • Birding news and features • Top contributors • Checklist statistics • Discussion board • Resources
The eBird Experience • Entering observations • Keeping your lists • Viewing data • Bulk uploads
eBird—Data Entry—Where did you bird? • My locations • Hotspots • Mapping tool • Latitude-Longitude • Location management
eBird—Data Quality Every record submitted to eBird goes through some level of data verification • Rarities • Aseasonal reports • High counts • Network of reviewers (generally one per province)
My eBird--Keeping Track of Your Lists • Maintain and manage lists • Year, Regional, state and county • View your eBird statistics • Manage and edit your data • View and manage profile
My eBird--Keeping Track of Your Lists Lists first date and location Detailed checklist view
My eBird--Keeping Track of Your Lists View all observations of a single species Sort by location or date
My eBird--Keeping Track of Your Lists Lists for any location or region
My eBird--Keeping Track of Your Lists Easy access to edit tools Print or download reports View diary notes
eBird Data Visualizations—Tabular Reports • Week, month, year • Any location • High count • Abundance • Frequency • Group size • Totals
eBird Data Visualizations—Bar Charts Frequency bar charts Any date and location
eBird Data Visualizations • Interactive graphs • View sample size • Download data • Glossary links
White-crowned Sparrow Frequency— BC Interior Hide/Show Sample Size
What Happens to the Data? eBird data are available for free internet download eBird data are combined with other bird survey data in the Avian Knowledge Network (AKN) Can be used to create local checklists Can be used for long-term monitoring
eBird Canada ...where birding meets science!
www.ebird.ca Thanks to Ralph Hocken for bird images
Bird Studies Canada www.bsc-eoc.org