Group items tagged

"Merlin will be a new kind of bird identification tool-one that combines artificial intelligence with input from real-life bird watchers to produce an online "wizard" that helps people ID birds quickly and connects them to more information. To build Merlin, we need to know how thousands of people remember and describe birds. You can help us by playing games that gather the information to help Merlin understand what bird watchers see. The more you play, the more you'll help Merlin become a true bird ID wizard."

"Birds instinct to migrate is often influenced by sudden shifts in temperature, amount of available daylight, moon phases and when strong tail winds are present. Like air quality, pollen count and UV reports, the FLAP Tracker is a Bird Migration Intensity report that alerts you to the concentration of birds as they fly through your region. "

"Gulf Coast bird watchers continue to survey beaches and marshes for birds as oil gushes from the Deepwater Horizon oil well.This tool highlights 10 focal species of conservation concern that are being impacted by the current oil spill. For each species, we display hundreds of recent Gulf Coast sightings on a map along with count information.. This information can effectively steer beach protection and clean-up efforts to the sites with the greatest concentrations of birds and most important habitats. "

With an old computer and 30 dollars worth of off-the-shelf components, you can gear up with cutting edge avian monitoring technology and help save the birds. For years, birdwatchers counted by sight during the daytime. The night - when most migratory birds travel - was literally hidden to them. But that's changing. Anyone can attach a microphone to a computer running birdcall-identifying software and track birds passing overhead in the darkness.

Includes statistics about NY bird species and a map showing variability in bird species richness across the state.

"Travel by boat with ornithologists as they catalog breathtaking bird life along the banks of one of Brazil's remote rivers. You'll discover how their work is redefining diversity in Amazonia and reshaping traditional conservation boundaries by identifying new Areas of Endemism-regions that harbor species found nowhere else in the world. Explore our interactive map to follow in the scientists' footsteps and view video journals and site notes documenting the team's experiences during their expedition. You can take a look at-and listen to-the amazing birds found at each of the three study sites and learn more fun facts about each species' habits and habitats!"

By Olivia Boulder, a 15-yr-old environmental activist who became well known 5 yrs ago when she offered her bird paintings in return for donations to help birds affected by the BP oil spill. 1. Kids (or anyone for that matter) can do a LOT. 2. The planet needs our help. 3. Politicians (and the people they represent) dislike change. 4. Art creates change. 5. Birds continue to amaze me!

"The birds-of-paradise are among the most beautiful creatures on earth-and an extraordinary example of evolutionary adaptation. On this site you can find what few have witnessed in the wild: the displays of color, sound, and motion that make these birds so remarkable. Then you can delve deeper, examining the principles that guided their evolution and the epic adventure it took to bring you all 39 species."

"Bird species in rainforest fragments in Brazil that were isolated by deforestation disappeared then reappeared over a quarter-century, according to research results published today in the journal PLoS (Public Library of Science) ONE. Scientists thought many of the birds had gone extinct."

NY Times article about modeling bird migration using eBird citizen science data along with habitat variables

"For thousands of years and countless generations, migratory birds have flown the same long-distance paths between their breeding and feeding grounds. Understanding the routes these birds take, called flyways, helps conservation efforts and gives scientists better knowledge of global changes, both natural and man-made. QUEST heads out to the Pacific Flyway with California biologists to track the rhythm of migration."

"Every morning when he walks the dog, retired professor of natural history Peter Slater can identify as many as thirty birds by their song along. On a walk in a Scottish town with Ari Daniel Shapiro, Slater explains what two common songsters, the chaffinch and winter wren, are singing about, and how even city dwellers can learn to "bird by ear" in their own neighborhoods, with rewarding results."

"On the evening of the ninth anniversary of 9/11, the twin columns of light projected as a memorial over the World Trade Center site became a source of mystery. Illuminated in the beams were thousands of small white objects, sparkling and spiraling, unlike anything seen on other nights... Those unidentified objects have now been identified as birds, pulled from their migratory path and bedazzled by the light in a perfect, poignant storm of avian disorientation."

This will give you the maps (and all the other birds done in the survey) used in Activity 1: Introduction to Bird Population Trends. Although each link is for the 2000-2005 maps, once you get the bird map you want, there is a link above the map that will give you the 1980-1985 historical map as well.

Welcome to the Urban Bird Sounds Project! This project will teach you to recognize bird sounds in the city. You can see all these birds in the city of Boston --and maybe in your city also.

"even with high-range estimates for renewables compared to low-range estimates for fossil fuels, fossil fuels are responsible for far more bird fatalities than solar or wind"

Summary of a peer-reviewed article on the response of tropical birds to climate change. Contains link to full article.

Downloadable world map using Wildfinder data to portray # bird species by terrestrial ecoregion

Overview on the Lab of Ornithology's blog summarizing the Crossing Boundaries trip to Jalisco, Mexico

"Some species, such as warblers, which can weigh less than an ounce but fly 2,500 miles without resting, double their body weights in preparation for the voyage.To put it in a human perspective, if you were going to put on a lot of fat and try to live off it while doing a cross-country run, you would die," said Russell Greenberg, head of the National Zoo's Migratory Bird Center. "There's no human equivalent.""