New From The Cornell Lab

Two big events to pass along from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. First, the Lab's quarterly magazine, Living Bird, is now available on-line at LivingBird.org.

Did I mention it's an award-winning magazine? It's no wonder, with regular columns by the likes of David Wilcove, Jack Conner, Mel White, and Pete Dunne - all four among my favorite writers, especially when it comes to all things birds. Feature articles that take you around the world, not just through the lyrical writing, but images that leave you speechless, placing you right in the action. All future issues will be archived for easy access, and all future issues will include web extras, additional images that wouldn't fit in the print version, and video (video!) from the Macaulay Library.

Second, a couple giant leaps forward from eBird: bulk uploading of past observations and the addition of checklists from the entire western hemisphere. Yep, you can submit your historical observations in a few relatively easy steps, increasing the usefulness of observations collected by birders from the past decades, not just the past few years. And they can be submitted from everywhere in the New World, everywhere between the Arctic and Antarctica.

Read more about the Data Import Tool and South America beta-testing, dig out those old notebooks and checklists from wherever you have been birding, "on the world's birdiest continent (South America) or its most birdless (Antarctica)," and let the fun begin!

Exciting times we live in, with these Internets. Enjoy!