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 [...]
By admin
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Posted in Birds, News, what you can do, you tell us
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Also tagged All About Birds, birding, Birds, birdwatching, identification, labs, Mark My Bird, Merlin, photos
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December 19, 2011 – 11:44 pm
All through our lives we draw inspiration from our elders, but there comes a point when we can turn around and start drawing inspiration from the young people coming up behind us. At a recent meeting of the Ohio Young Birders Club, we had a chance to hear from Rachael Butek, a recent high-school graduate [...]
By admin
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Posted in Birds, you tell us
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Also tagged birding, Birds, birdwatching, Blue Jay, fieldwork, Margaret Morse Nice, Rachael Butek, Song Sparrow, Sora, young birders
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It may not feel like the end of summer where you are, but in arctic Russia, where Gerrit Vyn has been watching endangered Spoon-billed Sandpipers, birds are already headed south. Here’s Gerrit’s description of the closing of the season, complete with a late, surprise encounter with a Spoon-billed Sandpiper and its newly hatched chicks: From [...]
By admin
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Posted in Birds, conservation, field reports, slideshow, travel
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Also tagged arctic, birding, Birds, birdwatching, endangered species, fieldwork, Gerrit Vyn, photos, Russia, shorebirds, Spoon-billed Sandpiper, travel, tundra
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Gerrit Vyn, a producer in our Multimedia program, has been spending the summer in remote eastern Russia filming one of the world’s most endangered birds, the Spoon-billed Sandpiper. In the last post he sent us, he described the plight of this species as well as his first sighting of a Spoon-billed Sandpiper. Here’s his next [...]
By admin
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Posted in Birds, conservation, field reports, slideshow, travel
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Also tagged birding, Birds, birdwatching, conservation, endangered species, fieldwork, Gerrit Vyn, photos, shorebirds, Spoon-billed Sandpiper, travel, Wildfowl Wetlands Trust
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In the arctic tundra of eastern Russia, a sparrow-sized shorebird with a one-of-a-kind beak is facing extinction—and a few scientists are doing all they can to save it. In recent years the Spoon-billed Sandpiper‘s population has dropped by a staggering 25 percent per year. Fewer than 200 pairs now remain. So this year, shorebird experts [...]
By admin
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Posted in Birds, conservation, field reports, slideshow, travel
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Also tagged arctic, birding, Birds, birdwatching, conservation, endangered species, fieldwork, Gerrit Vyn, Russia, shorebirds, Spoon-billed Sandpiper, travel
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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 [...]
By admin
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Posted in Birds, conservation, field reports, News, slideshow, travel
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Also tagged Andy Johnson, Anti-Petrels, Big Day, birding, Birds, birdwatching, Charles Eldermire, conservation, France Dewaghe, Hope Batcheller, Jay McGowan, photos, Redheads, Scott Haber, shorebirds, 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 [...]
By admin
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Posted in Birds, News, slideshow, travel
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Also tagged Belleplain, Big Day, birding, Birds, birdwatching, Charles Eldermire, conservation, France Dewaghe, New Jersey, photos, 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 [...]
By admin
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Posted in Birds, field reports, News, travel
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Also tagged Big Day, birding, Birds, birdwatching, Charles Eldermire, fieldwork, France Dewaghe, Jay McGowan, photos, shorebirds, slideshow, travel, Whimbrel, World Series of Birding
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February 19, 2011 – 10:17 am
You could argue a case for the Ivory Gull, but as far as immaculate whiteness goes, I adore the Snow Petrel. Made all the whiter by its big black eye, black bill, and black feet, this is a bird that belongs in front of icebergs, coursing on the cold black waves of gales. In big [...]
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Posted in Antarctica, Birds, field reports, Looks, News, slideshow, travel
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Also tagged Antarctica, birding, Birds, birdwatching, travel
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January 7, 2011 – 11:40 am
One of the birds I didn’t get to see during my travels in Belize was the endangered Yellow-headed Parrot. Today Katie Blake describes a close encounter with two of these delightful birds—orphans from an encounter with poachers. Katie was in Belize last summer as a research assistant studying Mangrove Swallows on the Golondrinas de las [...]
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Posted in Birds, conservation, field reports, News, travel
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Also tagged Belize, birding, Birds, birdwatching, conservation, endangered species, fieldwork, Katie Blake, tropical fieldwork, tropics
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