Data Owner:

Louisiana Bird Resource Center

Data Access: Level 5

Abstract

The Louisiana Bird Atlas is a project developed by the Louisiana Bird Resource Center at LSU using the eBird framework developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. The Louisiana Bird Atlas is one of several eBird portals that provide a simple way for birders to keep track of the birds they see anywhere in North America. The LWBA program will generate maps of relative abundance of birds in the state during late winter and early summer. To do this the Atlas follows a more specific protocol than eBird, borrowing the familiar, standard CBC methodology in terms of party-hours and party-miles to generate indices of relative abundance, and apply these to 7.5 minute USGS Quadrangle survey units, which are roughly one third as large as a CBC circle. It requests a minimum of twenty party-hours (total; not necessarily all in same day or year) is necessary to characterize a quad in the winter and ten morning hours for the summer period. These can be distributed in any way within the 6-week survey periods over the three year project duration. In fact, the same areas can be resampled multiple times as long as the numbers of birds are calibrated by party-hours and party-miles. More information about the Louisiana Bird Atlas can be found here.

The Louisiana Bird Atlas is one of several regional eBird portals that exist (aVerAves, Vermont eBird, Mass Audubon eBird, Texas eBird, Bird Conservation Network eBird, Gulf Coast Bird Observatory eBird etc.). Each contributes to the cumulative eBird database.

Purpose

The Louisiana Bird Atlas aims to:

1. Publish an atlas of bird distribution for Louisiana using the same 7.5 quad scale as in the Wiedenfeld & Swan's Breeding Bird Atlas.
2. Add a level of information not present in Wiedenfeld & Swan or any other atlas to our knowledge, namely information on relative abundance based on birds/party hour. The atlas will reflect these data with perhaps 5-6 color shades, on a scale such as <1/party-hr, 1/party-hr, 10/ph, 100/ph, and 1000/ph.
3. Have all data displayed online as soon as entered by observers and filtered by quad compiler. Allow instantaneous uploading of new data to web page that displays atlas results.

eBird's goal is to maximize the utility and accessibility of the vast numbers of bird observations made each year by recreational and professional bird watchers. It is amassing one of the largest and fastest growing biodiversity data resources in existence. For example, in 2006, participants reported more than 4.3 million bird observations across North America.

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.

eBird documents the presence or absence of species, as well as bird abundance through checklist data. A simple and intuitive web-interface engages tens of thousands of participants to submit their observations or view results via interactive queries into the eBird database. eBird encourages users to participate by providing Internet tools that maintain their personal bird records and enable them to visualize data with interactive maps, graphs, and bar charts. All these features are available in English, Spanish, and French.

A birder simply enters when, where, and how they went birding, then fills out a checklist of all the birds seen and heard during the outing. eBird provides various options for data gathering including point counts, transects, and area searches. Automated data quality filters developed by regional bird experts review all submissions before they enter the database. Local experts review unusual records that are flagged by the filters.

eBird collects observations from birders through portals managed and maintained by local partner conservation organizations. In this way eBird targets specific audiences with the highest level of local expertise, promotion, and project ownership. Portals may have a regional focus (aVerAves, eBird Puerto Rico) or they may have more specific goals and/or specific methodologies (Louisiana Winter Bird Atlas, Bird Conservation Network eBird). Each eBird portal is fully integrated within the eBird database and application infrastructure so that data can be analyzed across political and geographic boundaries. For example, observers entering observations of Cape May Warbler from Puerto Rico can view those data separately, or with the entire Cape May Warbler data set gathered by eBird across the western hemisphere.

Supplemental Information

eBird data are stored in a secure facility and archived daily, and are accessible to anyone via the eBird web site and other applications developed by the global biodiversity information community. For example, eBird data are part of the Avian Knowledge Network (AKN), which integrates observational data on bird populations across the western hemisphere. In turn, the AKN feeds eBird data to international biodiversity data systems, such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). In this way any contribution made to eBird increases our understanding of the distribution, richness, and uniqueness of the biodiversity of our planet.

Contact

• Richard Gibbons: rgibbo3@yahoo.com
• James V. Remsen: najames@lsu.edu