eBird proves valuable birding tool

As a birder I have been somewhat indifferent to lists – that is, keeping detailed accounts of what birds I’ve seen, on which dates, and in what locations. Other people are obsessive about keeping lists – even if it means logging the same common birds, such as chickadees and crows, over and over again. They even go so far as to purchase expensive bird-listing software.

Why anyone would want to create more computer time is beyond me. If a sighting is unusual enough, or it has some significance for me, I log it. But I hadn’t made a habit of it.

That is about to change.

The string of e-mails I’ve received over the summer regarding the absence or decline of swallows in many parts of Maine has been slowly prodding me into doing something. I wondered if people in other parts of the country, or even just the Northeast, were experiencing the same thing. Then I wondered how I might go about finding this out, concluding that it would take a lot of “legwork.”

I sat on this for awhile. Then, earlier this week, I received an e-mail from Craig Kesselheim in Southwest Harbor. Kesselheim, a lifelong birder, recommended a bird-listing database developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society called, appropriately, eBird.

I had read about and briefly investigated eBird when it was first introduced, but concluded – incorrectly – that it was not for me. Now I wonder how I could have been so shortsighted.

I’ve learned that eBird is a comprehensive tool. You can use it to find the locations of certain birds over the course of a week, month, or year. You can also use it to organize and track your own observations, as well as share them with other birders across the country. But most importantly, in doing so, you help to create an enormous database that will enable scientists to monitor bird populations across the whole of North America.

What a fantastic concept. Yes, our observations count. We can take an active, ongoing role in conservation. This has been the premise behind all of the Lab’s “citizen science” projects, but eBird brings it into a new dimension.

The Lab explains it succinctly: bird populations are a puzzle. Their aspects – abundance, decline, movements – are pieces of the puzzle, and they must be put together to get the whole picture.

It’s time for me to do my part in solving the puzzle.

To get to eBird, log on to: www.ebird.org.

Chris Corio, a volunteer at Fields Pond Audubon Center in Holden, can be reached at fieldspond@juno.com