NFAS is seeking your historic bird sighting data.
NFAS is seeking historic bird sighting data from anywhere in the world to be entered into the online eBird database. For those of you who are unfamiliar with eBird here is a brief description taken from the eBird web site:
eBird is a real-time, online checklist program, and has revolutionized the way that the birding community reports and accesses information about birds. Launched in 2002 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society, eBird provides rich data sources for basic information on bird abundance and distribution at a variety of spatial and temporal scales.
The observations of each participant join those of others in an international network of eBird users. eBird then shares these observations with a global community of educators, land managers, ornithologists, and conservation biologists. In time these data will become the foundation for a better understanding of bird distribution across the western hemisphere and beyond.
Currently the eBird site allows entry of historic sightings as far back as 1900. Such sightings are very important for historical analyses of bird population, distribution and abundance trends. For this reason NFAS began a pilot project in early 2008 to enter historic bird sightings as reported to NFAS and published in the NFAS newsletters. This pilot project has proven to be a success with over 1100 eBird submissions from the first 25 years worth of NFAS newsletters and another 300 submissions from data donated to NFAS by members. Many of these submissions contained rare and unusual sightings that required eBird reviewers to contact NFAS for additional supporting information on the sightings and in virtually every case the sightings were accepted based on the information included in the newsletters, an excellent testament to the dedication and skill of past and present NFAS members such as Aline Dove, Barry Benjamin and Paul Gillen in properly documenting rarities and unusual sightings.
With the pilot project a success it is now time to move forward and expand on this by requesting additional historic bird sighting data from our members. The minimum information needed for submission to eBird consists of species seen, date and location. Additional details such as whether all species seen were recorded, distance traveled, area covered, length of time and number of observers are useful and help make the data more meaningful but are not required. Specific locations are preferred but not absolutely necessary as more general locations, e.g. “Southold” are fine.
Based on the pilot project some members decided to create their own eBird accounts and enter their data themselves. We can assist any members that would like to do this by helping set up your account, showing you the basics of eBird and giving you some pointers based on what we have learned from the pilot project. The eBird website is very easy to use and is a great way to track your personal sightings whether historical or ongoing. Plus it is free to use! Other members decided to donate their materials to NFAS for us to enter under our organizational eBird account with details of the actual observers noted as part of the entries. Either of these choices fulfills the project’s goals of getting historical bird sighting data into eBird so that it can be used for conservation purposes.
If you or any of your family members or friends has historical data, please consider participating in this project. Do you have in your possession material such as notes from field guides, day lists, trip lists, reports to Rare Bird Alerts, bird checklists from nature preserves, trip lists from vacations or cruises, backyard day lists or wildlife journals? If so we ask you to participate in this project by either creating your own eBird account and entering the data yourself or donating the material to NFAS for entry under our organizational eBird account. Don’t forget that we can assist you in creating your eBird account and getting started if you decide to enter your data yourself!
For more information please contact us via e-mail at info@northforkaudubon.org. In addition you may visit the other pages of our web site dedicated to this project by clicking the links below.
Bob Deluca with the Pacific Loon he found in a farm field in Riverhead in April 1992 and reported to the NFAS Bulletin in May 1992. This record is now part of the eBird database.