February 14, 2012 – 5:50 pm
We’re steadily working to improve the offerings in our All About Birds online species guide. It’s our goal to eventually feature detailed ID information, photos, natural history, cool facts, sound recordings, and videos for all 700+ birds that live in North America. Right now we have basic information for some 580 species, and we’re [...]
January 23, 2012 – 8:03 pm
We’re in the midst of creating a free, online bird ID tool that can answer everyone’s first birding question, “What is that bird I saw?”—and we need your help to train the system. The project, called Merlin™, combines artificial intelligence with input from everyday birders and bird occurrence data from eBird. By using observations from birders [...]
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Also posted in Birds, what you can do, you tell us
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Tagged All About Birds, birding, Birds, birdwatching, identification, labs, Mark My Bird, Merlin, photos, sightings
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September 13, 2011 – 9:37 pm
A migrating Whimbrel named Machi has been shot on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, French West Indies. The bird (pictured at left) had likely landed to rest up after detouring around Tropical Storm Maria. Machi became one of thousands of shorebirds that are hunted for sport each fall—but she stood out from the flock because [...]
The emergency effort led by Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust to save Spoon-billed Sandpipers got off to a rousing start with a flurry of hatching in the last few days. In all, 17 tiny sandpiper chicks have hatched, right on schedule as the team were transporting eggs from the field site where they have been [...]
We’ve got a new Q&A app out for iPhones and it’s on sale for $1.99 to kick off the Memorial Day weekend. (At a regular price of $2.99, it’s still a pretty good deal.) It isn’t always enough just to watch birds—bird watchers are always asking questions about them too. WHY is that cardinal attacking [...]
On an overcast and occasionally rainy day in Cape May, the Cornell Lab Redheads and Anti-Petrels found enough good “gets” to offset the painful misses from a slow day of songbird migration. Both teams won their divisions in the 2011 World Series of Birding: the Redheads won Cape May County with 163 species, and the [...]
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Also posted in Birds, conservation, field reports, slideshow, travel
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Tagged Andy Johnson, Anti-Petrels, Big Day, birding, Birds, birdwatching, Charles Eldermire, conservation, France Dewaghe, Hope Batcheller, Jay McGowan, photos, Redheads, Scott Haber, shorebirds, sightings, travel, World Series of Birding
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(The Redheads and the Anti-Petrels are in southern New Jersey scouting their routes for the World Series of Birding on Saturday, May 14. More info and scouting reports.) Dusk is gathering under the pines at Belleplain. Swainson’s Thrushes and Veeries called off and on through the day, but what’s ruling the airwaves right now is [...]
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Also posted in Birds, slideshow, travel
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Tagged Belleplain, Big Day, birding, Birds, birdwatching, Charles Eldermire, conservation, France Dewaghe, New Jersey, photos, sightings, travel, World Series of Birding
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Wednesday was the first full day of scouting for our two World Series of Birding teams, the Redheads and the Anti-Petrels. We’re doing what you do during scouting week—re-learning bird calls, re-finding birds we can count on, obsessing over which route we should take on Saturday, second guessing the route we took last year, and [...]
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Also posted in Birds, field reports, travel
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Tagged Big Day, birding, Birds, birdwatching, Charles Eldermire, fieldwork, France Dewaghe, Jay McGowan, photos, shorebirds, sightings, slideshow, travel, Whimbrel, World Series of Birding
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Along with the Redheads, the Cornell Lab’s other team in next week’s World Series of Birding is the Anti-Petrels. They’re competing in the “Carbon Footprint Cup,” which means they do all of their traveling on the day of the event by bike. Last year they rode 101 miles to win their category with 150 species—but [...]
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Also posted in Birds, conservation, travel
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Tagged Anti-Petrels, Big Day, birding, Birds, birdwatching, Charles Eldermire, France Dewaghe, travel, World Series of Birding
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It’s been two weeks since Team Sapsucker set the Big Day record in Texas—but that’s not quite the end of the 24-hour birding marathons. The World Series of Birding is next Saturday, May 14, in New Jersey, and in this post and the next we’ll introduce the two teams we’re sending: the Redheads, made up [...]
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Also posted in Birds, conservation, travel
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Tagged Andy Johnson, Big Day, birding, Birds, birdwatching, conservation, Hope Batcheller, Jay McGowan, Redheads, Scott Haber, travel, World Series of Birding
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