It has been a while since I wrote about resources for birders and ornithologists on the Internet. Today's column will cover several innovations in cyberbirding. The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology figures prominently in all of these resources.
The CLO has long been a depository for sound and video recordings of birds and other animals. Now that these files can be saved in digital format, they are easily shared with researchers and interested people.
The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the CLO boasts the largest collection of sound recordings of animals in the world. Some of these sound recordings have associated video. The entire collection of recordings is being digitized. More than 65,000 sound clips and 18,000 video recording are available as streaming files for free.
The sound files can be played using the free application RealPlayer. Better yet, a free tool called RavenViewer can be downloaded. This tool works within QuickTime.
RavenViewer not only allows you to play the sound recordings but to visualize the recordings in real time. A wave form of the sound scrolls across the screen showing the loud and soft portions of the file. Even more useful is the spectrogram that shows the frequencies of each part of the sound.
The sound and video recordings provide a great opportunity for learning. I searched for American Robin and found that 431 recordings are in the Macaulay Library, and nearly all have been uploaded for users to hear.
The focus of the on-line recordings is on North American species, mainly birds, although many recordings made outside of North America are available. To visit the Macaulay Library, go to: www.animalbehaviorarchive.org.
eBIRD: The CLO is maintaining a nationwide digital system for sharing birding observations. After a field trip, contributors simply visit eBird at ebird.org/ and enter the numbers of individuals of each species of bird they saw on a field trip along with the location.
These records become part of a database that can be searched by anyone. Imagine you will be on a trip to Cleveland in April and want to know what birds you might be able to see. A quick search of the eBird database will give you tons of records of birds that other birds have seen in that area in the spring.
eBird keeps track of all the records you have added to the database and will keeps a lifelist for you. You can enter data taken from trips years ago. All of those records are valuable.
The eBird software knows when you have made an unusual sighting and will prompt you to make sure that other possible identifications have been eliminated. Rare bird sightings are tagged as such and can be sent to birders who like to keep abreast of local rarities.
The easiest way to keep track of these rarities is to use the eBird gadget (ebird.org/content/ebird/news/Google_Gadget.html). This is a tool that you load to a personalized iGoogle page (go to www.google.com/ig to set up the page). The eBird gadget will search the state of your choice for recent rarities.
In looking at the eBird gadget list in my iGoogle page, I see that recent rarities in Maine are Eastern Screech Owl, Orange-crowned Warbler and Black-headed Gull. Directions and a map for the location of each sighting are provided.
BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA: This project was born nearly 20 years when the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia devised a way to assess the cumulative knowledge of all North American breeding birds. A specialist was found to write an account for each of the more than 700 species covered.
Each account is in a standard format with the same organization throughout (e.g., Distribution, Distinguishing Characteristics, Migration, Habitat, Sounds). One of the most valuable aspects of each account is the extensive bibliography on each species at the end of the account.
The 720 volumes were initially issued in paper. The accounts are now in digital format as well. One advantage of the digital accounts is that they can be easily updated as new information arises. A second advantage is that users do not need 12 feet of shelf space to house the collection.
The digital version of Birds of North America is administered now through the CLO (bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna). A yearly subscription is only $40.
The CLO has recently made an abbreviated form of each account available for free. This resource is called All About Birds. It can be found at: www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/ on the Web. You can find links on that page to basic identification skills, bird gear and attracting birds to your backyard.
Herb Wilson teaches ornithology and other biology courses at Colby College. He welcomes reader comments and questions at whwilson@colby.edu. Previous columns and other information on Maine birding can be found at his blog:
www.mainebirds.blogspot.com
