E-Bird Update

E-Bird Update- Cornell lab of Ornithology   Recent enhancements have made it easier to keep track of your personal records and share them with fellow birders, scientists and conservationists. eBird provides the very types of output that birders want: list-keeping, rare bird alerts, state of the art mapping, and numerous ways to explore and view data. Let us describe these new features. You can keep track of all your bird lists: life, year, state, county and more. You can easily share checklists with your birding companions. Whether you're on a field trip or birding with friends, one person can enter a checklist and share it with the group. Each person can then edit their version of the list to reflect exactly what they saw. You can enter comments, age/sex information, subspecies, hybrids, and "spuhs" on your daily checklists. You can select locations using an intuitive Google Maps interface. You can report birds from anywhere in Western Hemisphere, including Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Antarctica. We've expanded outside the New World with the addition of New Zealand and plan to continue to expand worldwide in 2009. You can import sightings from popular birding software as well as from spreadsheets such as Excel. You can get up-to-the-minute rare bird reports from the eBird "Rare Bird Gadget" complete with a map and directions. Your sightings are combined with others to create maps, graphs and other helpful birding tools. The eBird homepage keeps users up to date on the latest news in eBird and around the birding world. Learn when and where to find birds using the enhanced eBird bar charts. Read about all these features and more by visiting eBird. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology's mission is to interpret and conserve the earth's biological diversity through research, education, and citizen science focused on birds. Your support helps us solve critical problems facing birds and other wildlife by using the best science and technology--and by inspiring people of all ages and walks of life to care about and protect the planet. Audubon's mission is to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the earth's biological diversity. Our national network of community-based nature centers and chapters, scientific and educational programs, and advocacy on behalf of areas sustaining important bird populations, engage millions of people of all ages and backgrounds in positive conservation experiences.