eBird Reference Dataset (2.0) released!
One year ago we released the initial version of the eBird Reference dataset. We are now excited to announce the release of the eBird Reference Dataset (Version 2.0), which adds observations from the year 2009. This resulted in a significant increase in the number of records: while The eBird Reference Dataset (ERD) v1.0 included about 1.35 million observations, the addition of 2009 data doubles this figure to more than 2.71 million records.
The "eBird Reference Dataset (Version 2.0)" is free to download and available for use within the usage and copyright restrictions below. The PDF below describes the eBird Reference Dataset and the processing steps taken during creation. We hope these data will be a useful resource for studying avian dynamics and for developing new ecological modeling techniques. This dataset contains count data for bird species observed by novice and experienced bird observers (a.k.a. birders). The data were submitted by volunteers to eBird, a citizen-science project run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. Each record in this dataset is a part of a checklist that a birder uses to mark the number of birds of each species detected; one checklist is submitted per sampling event (i.e., birding session). Each checklist submitted from the 48 states in the contiguous United States is additionally annotated with hundreds of predictor variables (covariates) that are derived from the location of the sampling event. Additional checklists from Canada, Alaska, the Caribbean, Middle America, and South America are also included but do not have these additional predictor variables.
A couple other changes:
1) This dataset includes "Incidental" Observations (formerly "Casual Observations"), whereas v1.0 did not. Incidental Observations are those submitted to eBird without effort information (i.e., duration, distance, or area covered).
2) A couple new covariates have been included and are listed at the bottom.
The Dataset
Download the data (both v1.0 and v2.0 are available here)Download the data manual (v2.0)
Download the species primer (50 MB file - please be patient)
Usage and Copyright
The eBird reference data is freely available for all usages. The observational data included in the data set have data access level 5 in the Avian Knowledge Network (AKN) data warehouse and are published here in compliance with the AKN data sharing policy. eBird is run by the National Audobon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and the data is copyrighted by both organizations. A primary goal in publishing these data is to provide a common data resource for studying and comparing ecological models; as such, derivative versions of the eBird reference data set must not be distributed without explicit permission from the copyright holders. The data set is a snapshot of submitted observations for years prior to 2010 that were submitted to eBird and reviewed by May 17, 2010. Observations with an observation date later than December 31, 2009 were not included.
Published results using this data should cite this document as follows:
M. Arthur Munson, Kevin Webb, Daniel Sheldon, Daniel Fink, Wesley M. Hochachka, Marshall Iliff, Mirek Riedewald, Daria Sorokina, Brian Sullivan, Christopher Wood, and Steve Kelling. The eBird Reference Dataset, Version 2.0. Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society, Ithaca, NY, June 2010.
Please direct any questions to:
M. Arthur Munson at mmunson@cs.cornell.edu and Steve Kelling at
stk2@cornell.edu
In addition, we would be very pleased to be informed of any publications that use this data. Send us an email at ebird@cornell.edu.
New covariates in this version 2.0 are as follows:
Table 2: BAILEY_ECOREGION & OMERNIK_L3_ECOREGION
Table 3: NLCD01_CANOPYMEAN_RAD and NLCD01_IMPERVMEAN_RAD covariates.