To new eBird users, old eBird users & Merlin users

[Wendy VanDeWalle]

Hi all! 

The Summer field season is upon us and I just wanted to encourage all eBird users to input the breeding code for your reported species. No promises, but we are toying with the idea of adding some nesting info for a few species to the Summer Field report. Even if we don’t do it, its still great citizen science for eBird. 

You don’t really need to learn the codes because you can click on each of them until you get to the one you want. Also putting lots of notes in the comment section is very helpful especially the number of young seen. You can go back and add that particular info from the website as well, but I’ll admit even I’m not great at doing that extra step. But if you can that’s awesome . 

I also wanted to comment on using Merlin. 

As a field report editor, I most likely won’t accept a report of a rare or even uncommon bird if the only comment is “Merlin ID”. Merlin can get numerous species wrong, so please verify by sight and put that in your comments if you did. Also put in a detailed description of what the bird looks like. If you did get a recording please add that. If you need help with doing that, you are welcome to contact me. And of course pictures are awesome! You don’t have to be a professional photographer to put your pictures on. I’m certainly not. It just needs to be good enough for ID. 

So I encourage you to brave the bugs and get out there and document those breeding birds, as long as you can be respectful without disturbing them. 

I’m not finding that many Cuckoos this year are you? Maybe I’m just not getting out there early enough anymore. Haha! But seriously, there has been a decline in the number of reports for both species, so go check on your local birds. 

Happy Birding! 

Wendy VanDeWalle

Buchanan Co