Why Should I eBird?

Every time that you see and identify a bird, you are holding a piece of a puzzle. Whether you are casually watching birds in your backyard, exploring a new birding area or chasing rare species, you are helping to put this puzzle together. …It might be a personal puzzle. For example, you might wonder when Baltimore Orioles appear in your backyard each spring or track the schedule of the birds visiting your feeder. Each time that you see and identify any of these birds—so long as you note the time and date—one piece of the puzzle falls into place.

Or it might be a regional puzzle. For instance, scientists might be wondering how quickly Red-bellied Woodpeckers are spreading throughout Massachusetts or how rapidly Bobolinks are declining. Each time that you identify and count the numbers of one of these species, you are piecing together a part of that puzzle.

Or it might be an international puzzle. Each year during migration, hundreds of species fly from southern wintering grounds to northern breeding grounds, following the emergence of summer insects. When do they leave? Where do they stop along the way? Where do they nest? And when do they return to their winter home? Whether recording common birds in your backyard or documenting a warbler wave at your favorite migrant trap, your sightings of these birds—with time, date, and location included—are pieces that can help ornithologists put together the parts of that huge puzzle, day by day, week by week, and year by year.

Like puzzle pieces, these observations have little value if they remain separate from one another. The sightings tucked away in your memory, or in your desk drawer, or in an old shoebox in your closet leave gaps in a partially completed picture. But when these valuable records are collected and organized into a single database, they help complete our understanding of the rhythms of bird life, information that is crucial for the success of bird conservation.

You can access your own bird records anytime you want, and the system’s built-in analytical tools allow you to look at your observations in new ways and to answer your personal questions about what birds you saw and when and where you saw them. With birdwatchers and nature lovers across Massachusetts (and North America) helping to construct the eBird database, the system will soon become a vast source of bird and environmental information useful not only to bird watchers but to scientists and conservationists the world over. Want to know the closest spot to find a Least Bittern in the Commonwealth? Interested in whether the crow population is growing or declining? Curious about the current status of endangered Piping Plovers on Massachusetts beaches?

eBirding is fun, fascinating, and potentially of immense value in helping to protect the bird life of Massachusetts and beyond. Help us make the most of this great new conservation tool by making the eBird system part of your birding routine or a way to turn your daily outdoor exercise regime into a contribution to science. Please encourage your friends, family members, students, and colleagues to use it as well. The value of eBird is in the power of numbers. The more birds we record now, the greater the odds that these spectacular creatures will remain common enough for future generations to enjoy.