Young Birder's Event at the Cornell Lab [Gatherings]

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is excited to host The Cornell Lab Young Birders Event, which will be held August 12‐15, 2010 in Ithaca, New York. The Young Birders’ Event aims to bring together teenagers with a passion for birds and interested in pursing a career in the field. You’ll meet people who have successful careers that involve birds in a variety of ways from ornithological researchers to tour leaders, to audio specialists and computer scientists. High school aged young birders are invited to fill out our application form and return it for review by April 15th 2010. Ten young birders will be selected and notified in late April.

The Young Birder’s Event will feature:

• two days of field trips
• presentations by Cornell Lab of Ornithology staff including professors, researchers,
and students who will share various ways to incorporate birds into a career
• eBird and field notes workshop
• specimen preparation workshop
• sound recording workshop
• tour of Cornell Lab including the Macaulay Library and Museum of Vertebrates
• dinner with Cornell Lab Directors and Staff

Read more about this year's event, and check out a recap of last year's inaugural event. Be sure to spread the news, especially if you know or work with young birders!

--

Learn More About Birds [Double Your Pleasure]

Here's another FYI post to announce a new online course offered through the Cornell Lab, especially great for those who want to increase their knowledge about the birds they're watching.

Enhance Your Enjoyment of Birds with Our New Online Course

Why does a Red-winged Blackbird flare its colorful wing patches? What does it mean when ducks bob their heads? Explore the meaning behind fascinating bird behaviors with the Cornell Lab's newest course, "Investigating Behavior—Courtship and Rivalry in Birds."

"It's packed with multimedia and interactive activities that make this course unlike anything else available," says course instructor and author Colleen McLinn. "We wanted to create a learning environment that's friendly and accessible to everyone."

“You get the whole gamut—from birds you might see in your backyard to the most spectacular birds on the planet,” says course coauthor Kevin McGowan.

The five-week course begins on November 11 and will be offered again on January 6. The course is $255 for Cornell Lab members ($295 for nonmembers), plus a $30 registration fee. You can watch a 2.5-minute video about the course at http://www.ecornell.com/birds. To receive the member discount, sign up by phone at (866) 326-7635 and mention that you are a member. Enrollment is limited, so sign up soon!

-

A Golden Opportunity! [Working for a Living]

Here is an amazing opportunity, perhaps the chance of a lifetime: you could come to Ithaca and work with me! And a bunch of other people who love birds, of course. Good luck if you apply!

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is seeking a programmer/analyst to work as part of a terrestrial acoustic monitoring initiative to monitor the flight-calls of nocturnally migrating birds. This position had a primary emphasis on creating user interfaces for automated detection, classification, and visualization systems. We are seeking someone with a passion for studying bird migration and flight calls, someone who is excited about developing cutting edge tools that will be a cornerstone of the next generation, state of the art acoustic monitoring of migrant birds.

This position is available in the Bioacoustics Research Program - it has been posted on the Jobs at Cornell on-line posting and application system at http://www.ohr.cornell.edu/jobs/ - if you know of anyone that might be interested in this position, please have them apply.

BARN Software Developer
Programmer Analyst II - Band E
2 positions available

Description:
· Contribute to the development and maintenance of web-based sound analysis software tools and support ongoing and future research in the field of animal bioacoustics at the Bioacoustics Research Program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Current scientific research projects supported by our software involve the study of communication systems and behavior in whales, elephants, migrating birds, endangered birds, and other birds.
· Under guidance of project lead, perform tasks to help move forward the overall set of tools provided by the group through the BARN project, http://barn.xbat.org. The BARN project develops tools to support the creation of networked annotated sound libraries. Our web-based tools allow users to maintain and richly annotate sound collections in support of their research.
· Collaborate with local and remote end users to answer questions, investigate and recreate problems, and recommend resolutions.
· Meet with team to discuss solutions, take advice from lead regarding the implementation of solutions.
· Implement data conversion utilities, user interface features, and other software features designed by self or others to fit into established architecture.
· Develop features to facilitate the acquisition, curation, scanning, review, and reporting of acoustic data and metadata to support the field of bioacoustics research.
· Tasks may include but are not limited to file upload methods; metadata manipulation and storage; web browser-based user-initiated scan, review, and reporting; integration of signal processing components into a workflow; and development of tagging and filtering schemes.
· Develop software using a variety of technologies (Ruby, Javascript, RDBMS, MATLAB, LAMP, others as needed) to stretch the possibilities of the system for the research community.
· Collaborate within a team environment to provide documentation to developers and end users for the best ways to use the software.
· Provide consultation and training to staff, faculty, students, and visiting research colleagues to use the innovative technologies available.

Required Qualifications:
· Bachelor's degree with three to four years relevant experience or equivalent combination.
· Experience maintaining source code using version control.
· Experience with software design and development using two or more of the following technologies: Ruby (various frameworks and tools: Rails, RSpec, Sinatra, Capistrano, gems), Javascript (jQuery, JSON, Processing.js), RDBMS (SQL, MySQL, SQLite, JDBC), MATLAB (signal, image processing, data-visualization), LAMP maintenance and administration.
· Proven ability to learn new programming languages quickly.
· Experience with web-design for data-driven and/or multi-media applications.
· Must be able to communicate technical language clearly in layman's terms.
· Demonstrable skills in problem solving, critical thinking, and clear written and oral communication.
· Ability to work well with a diverse group in a professional and respectful work environment.

Preferred Qualifications:
· Master's degree desired in computer science, computer engineering, or related field preferred.
· Coursework in statistics, machine-learning, data-mining or database systems.
· Experience applying and developing data-mining strategies and systems; knowledge of analytical and statistical tools, as well as general tools for graphing and figure drawing.
· Experience performing independent literature searches and scientific research.
· Experience writing software in Python, Java, and/or PHP.
· Experience working on software projects outside a classroom environment.
· Knowledge of and experience using XML.

-

Great Blue Heron: Gone Fishin'

Yesterday I posted a teaser, for which I apologize. I'm no fan of cliff-hangers. I want resolution now, I don't want to carry it around for a week, something conditioned by those one-hour CSI, Law&Order, and Desperate Housewives shows. That said, I'm glad you're back to see how the Great Blue Heron went from "I'd like a fish" to "I got one!"

Heron sightings are abundant this spring in Sapsucker Woods, you only need to look at the nest they built to find one. During, or shortly after, their nest construction I found one perched on a downed log near the middle of the pond. Hoping to photograph the bird in flight, maybe delivering a stick back to the nest, I set up the camera and waited. I didn't catch a return to the nest sequence, but watch the embedded slideshow below (man, I hope this works) to watch what I captured. You can also visit the web album to view the (larger) still images.





If that worked, you will have witnessed a couple of events I found interesting. First, I won the staring contest. You can see in the first slide the intense glaring I received for about a half-minute, and then the moment of victory (second slide) when the bird was distracted by something in the water. But I had no time to savor the moment.

The second event relates to heron foraging behavior. As Great Blues are fairly common almost anywhere there's water, and they are such large, easily observable birds, I'm guessing most everyone has watched one snag a prey item at one point or another. If I'm right, you're familiar with the methodical stalking as they patiently step their way through the water or across a field, leaning forward as they sight a fish, amphibian, reptile, mammal, bird - they're really not that picky.

The actual capture takes but a second. A rapid thrust of the neck and head, and voila! Before you can blink they've got something tightly squeezed between their mandibles.

What I've never seen was a heron jump in the water from dry land, or floating log, after something, and almost fully submerge below the surface. But this one did, and, best of all, it came up with a snack. I particularly like the image of the bird returning its gaze towards me with the, "That's right, homeclown, I got the fish!"

It's always satisfying to witness a successful hunt, the food web in action, especially when it includes a new method of food capture. At least, this was a new method to me, perhaps you've seen this before?

-

Photo Files: Great Blue Heron, With Snack

From the photo files of 12 May 2009 . . .

Great Blue Heron after capturing a snack.
Click on the photo for a larger image.

In early May, after/during the construction of the Great Blue Heron nest at Sapsucker Woods, I found one of the herons standing quietly, taking in its surroundings. As I sat and watched, also quietly, it captured a relatively small fish. I was lucky enough to capture the sequence, which ended with the bird flying off to the opposite shore where I lost track of it.

Next up: the full fishing sequence.

-

Lunchtime In Sapsucker Woods

How long can you stare at a computer screen? Seriously, how long do you last before you lean back, rub your eyes, and finally stand, stretch, and walk away? I have no idea where my threshold lies but I fired right past it yesterday. I didn't pace myself, jumped right in without any warm up, and over exerted myself. After continuing to stare straight through the lunch hour (when did lunch ever last an hour, anyway?) I decided to refresh, regroup, and recenter with a late lunchtime walk through Sapsucker Woods.

I grabbed the camera in case I should stumble across anything photogenic, but I mostly just let my feet and mind wander. If I had to have a goal it was to check on the Great Blue Heron nest that I wrote about earlier.

Parental Great Blue Heron stretching, preening; somewhere in there is the chick.

It's still there. Not only is it still there, the parents are still routinely visiting it, especially now that it includes a . . . drum roll, please . . . a chick! Monday morning, 08 June, Charles of Contemplative Nuthatch fame and Sapsuckerwoods notoriety (if you Twitter) watched a parent regurgitate a meal to a chick. On June 11th, Laura Erickson, Birdscope editor and known from various spots on the web including Laura's Birding Blog, Twin Beaks, and "For the Birds" podcasts, posted the first image of the chick.

During my tenure staring at the nest, waiting for an interaction that would be overwhelmingly cute or intoxicatingly horrific, nothing happened. One parent lay hunkered down when I first saw the nest, eventually stood and preened for what felt like hours, then disappeared - I never saw it fly nor re-hunker.

Water lilies cover the backside of the pond, many blooming.
I'm not sure of the identity, could be the native Nymphaea odorata.

No matter. Decompression was complete, I started back towards the building. Along the Wilson Trail (north side) you cannot walk more than three steps without running into American Redstarts, one of my favorite warblers: strikingly beautiful, generously accommodating.

American Redstarts line the Wilson Trail between the
Sherwood Platform and the Fuller Wetlands.

The most interesting sighting wasn't avian at all, but reptilian. I stood on a boardwalk that stretches into the Fuller Wetlands, staring at the back of a painted turtle picking at some nondescript, brown underwater vegetation. While wondering how to shoot it (photographically, people, photographically!) I noticed a snake loosely coiled on a handful of bent reeds, laying over the water. The perch looked as precarious as the heron's stick nest, but it was clearly a solid support.

Tentatively identified as a Northern Water Snake, I welcome corrections
and/or thoughts by those more experienced with snake identification.

I made a few mental notes, took a few photographs, and quickly found an online field guide once back at my desk. Of the 17 species that occur in New York the best fit I found is a Northern Water Snake, Nerodia sipedon. The descriptions I found online seem to fit, though I don't see any trace of any pattern - just solid, dark brown. Which, I gleaned, older adults can show, while younger snakes typically show a banded pattern near the head. The lack of any pattern would suggest this snake is an old timer. Any thoughts or comments welcome and appreciated!


Amazing how the day improved after a short walk in the woods.

-

Did You Know?

On May 18, 1929, a Song Sparrow, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, and House Wren made history as they sang. Their songs were captured in the first-ever audio recordings of North American birds. The Fox-Case Movietone Corporation preserved the songs on film using an optical technique to record sound waves, with help from Cornell Lab of Ornithology founder Arthur Allen and colleague Peter Paul Kellogg in Ithaca, New York's Stewart Park.

Read the full story and hear the songs at All About Birds.

-

New at The Cornell Lab: Inside Birding and A New Neighbor

Something new on the revamped All About Birds website: Inside Birding, a video series hosted by renowned birders, and Cornell Lab staffers, Chris Wood and Jessie Barry.

Whether you’re new to birding or a seasoned expert, interested in sharpening your identification skills or wondering how to clean your binoculars, you’ve come to the right place.

On Inside Birding, hosts Chris Wood and Jessie Barry share all of the tools, tips, and techniques that will allow you to start birding like the pros. From where and when to find birds, to the clues that will help you identify them, Inside Birding provides the information that you need to make the most of your birding experience. So check it out and take your birding to the next level.

Check out the first few episodes on the Inside Birding website.

Jumping out the virtual world and back into the real one, we have new residents moving into the Sapsucker Woods neighborhood. A pair of Great Blue Herons spent much of today fashioning a stick nest in the middle of Sapsucker Woods. The snag sits in the middle of Sapsucker Woods Pond and often serves as a perch for Osprey, hawks, Red-winged Blackbirds . . . too many to list, really. It even hosted a Western Kingbird, nearly a decade ago when I first started working at the Lab.

Friday morning a pair of herons was observed "being amorous" on the snag, the male offering the female a long, multi-pronged branch, which she placed on the snag. Today, Monday, the birds were in full nest-building mode, it seemed the male flying in with a new stick every few minutes. He transferred them to the female who placed it on what seems as stable as a deck of cards: one wrong move, the whole thing comes tumbling down.

The male watches as the female places a stick. I'm no
architect, but I'm thinking vertical isn't the best orientation.

I spent a few minutes towards the end of the day watching what promises to be a fascinating breeding season. Here is a sequence of shots of a stick transfer, click on an image for a larger image to see the details.

The male heron arrives with a suitable stick for the nest. In the
background USAir flight 4685 arrives (early) from LaGuardia.

The male heron transfers the stick to the
female, who accepts it in a bowing posture.

The female heron places the stick in the nest as the male watches, then . . .

. . . the male is off to find yet another stick.

To be continued . . . .

-

Young Birders Event at the Cornell Lab

This just in . . .

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is excited to host The Cornell Lab Young Birders Event, which will be held August 6-9, 2009 in Ithaca, New York. The Young Birders Event aims to bring together teenagers with a passion for birds who are interested in pursing a career with birds. The young birders will meet people who have successful careers that involve birds in a variety of ways from ornithological researchers to tour leaders, to audio specialists and computer scientists. High school aged young birders are invited to fill out our application form and return it for review by May 10th 2009. Ten young birders will be selected and notified in mid-May. Please share this information with any young birders you know!

The Young Birder’s Event will feature:

• two days of field trips
• presentations by Cornell Lab of Ornithology staff including professors, researchers, and students who will share various ways to incorporate birds into a career
• eBird and field notes workshop
• specimen preparation workshop
• sound recording workshop
• tour of CLO including the Macaulay Library and Museum of Vertebrates
• dinner with CLO Directors and Staff

Details are on the eBird News page. It's a great opportunity, if you're not a young birder, please pass it along to any you may know!

-

The Big Debut

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is on the eve of the release of the new All About Birds site, but also of something special (more on that in a moment).

Yesterday, after watching a preview of the new All About Birds site, Rick Bonney (Director of Program Development and Evaluation) reminisced about a meeting that took place some five-plus years ago. Like Rick, I remembered John Fitzpatrick sketching his vision of the Lab's web site, which included a series of "doors and windows" that allowed visitors to delve deep into information about each species and to easily move to additional pages for continual discovery. Within those rooms was a treasure trove of information, regularly updated and improved as our knowledge of each species expanded. It looked great on paper, but the functionality and architecture of the site had to be carefully designed, painstakingly developed.

"What you guys have done is commendable," Rick concluded. "You've actually done it."

All About Birds is just what the title implies: information on everything from how to approach bird identification, how to attract them to your yard, what gear to choose to enhances your experience, and my one-click bookmarked favorite: accounts of 500+ species that occur in North America. The pages attract 500,00 unique visitors a month, and still growing.

For a few weeks now the Communications team has worked furiously to create pages that are more robust, more user-friendly, exploding with useful content . . . and tomorrow, it goes live. I will be anxious to hear your impressions - we've been collecting input from users for months now via the Lab's Round Robin blog. I'm not officially involved in developing these new pages, but as a wannabe educator I'm curious to know your thoughts - privately, or in the comments here.

And now something special: I'm probably letting a cat out of the bag, but one thing you won't see on the new pages is the Lab's familiar logo, affectionately called the "Everybird." Tomorrow we're rolling out a new logo, a new "brand."

The "Everybird" will be retired over the next few months, replaced by a new identity - something I find fascinating. Though I've been passionate about science writing since my college days, recently I've developed an appreciation of the art of communicating through symbols, emblems, fonts; by what's conveyed behind the words. I was not part of the team that worked with the outside company on the logo, but I've been keenly interested in the couple of staff meetings where we discussed the ideas.

That's all I'll say right now, but I am very interested in your thoughts on the Lab's new logo.

So, a request: please drop me some feedback about the new pages and about the new logo, either here in the comments or by email (noflickster AT gmail DOT com). Comment section preferred, I'd love to see some discourse among readers, but if you don't want to go public, private email works, too. Call the neighbors, wake the kids, I'm interested in a wide variety of opinions. Blog about it, or point your visitors here to drop comments. Seriously, and thanks in advance.

And in the meantime, if you're sentimental, especially if the "Everybird" conveys "Cornell Lab of Ornithology" without needing any words, read this 2005 interview with Peter Parnall, the designer of the "Everybird."



-

New at The Cornell Lab: Neotropical Birds Online

The Internet is undeniably a phenomenal gateway to a flowing river of knowledge, but there are areas where it's tough to find exhaustive and well-organized information. If you're interested in birds, for example, the All About Birds Bird Guide is a wonderful one-stop pool to get your feet wet. If you want to plunge deeper, there's the Birds of North America Online, the more-exhaustive relative of All About Birds. Here's where you'll find the details about each species that regularly occurs in North America, north of the U.S. - Mexico border.

But swim a bit father afield, into the neotropics, and the organization isn't as structured. Lots of info to be found, but often scattered across multiple sites, difficult to find, and in some cases completely lacking. And in other cases, it's even worse: the information is simply wrong, based on conjecture; fact-checking can be sketchy on the 'Net.

But not for long. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is pleased to announce the launch of Neotropic Birds, a free resource that covers all species that regularly occur south of the U.S. - Mexico border, all the way to the southern tip of South America. Act now and you'll get the birds of the Caribbean for three easy payments (and one complicated one)! I'm kidding. Of course, all of those Greater and Lesser Antilles are yours, absolutely free!

It's a work in progress, not all species are represented. They will be, over time, and the current introductory accounts will continue to be updated and expanded as we learn more about these amazing species. You can read a letter of introduction from Tom Schulenberg, one of the site's creators, at Laura's Birding Blog. Now is the time to safely dive into Neotropic Birds!

-

The Gran Pajonal Expedition

If you like reading about scientists exploring little-visited, remote areas then you'll love this.

This is the story of three undergraduate students turned passionate biologists, not to mention avid and talented birders, who mounted an expedition to a remote region in central Peru. It's the story of a region consisting of diverse forests and grasslands, to date largely ignored by ornithologists. It's a story where new discoveries could appear anywhere, anytime.

But it's not my story to tell. Instead, visit the Gran Pajonal Expedition web site to learn about the team, their goals, the importance of their work, and the latest reports from the field.

And live, as I do, in jealousy!

-

Bobwhite Returns

Today was a pretty good day for Northern Bobwhite viewing at the Lab. It has been seen off-and-on this summer, enough to make the case this bird is hanging around. I had an out-of-the-blue, mood-enhancing encounter one evening as I walked to my car, unfortunately sans camera. This morning I had my camera in hand when I tracked it down.

Technical blogging aside: these photos are embedded a bit differently, clicking on them will take you to a web album of photos. I'm deciding if I like that approach better than the way I've been uploading images; let me know what you think.

Back to the guest of honor. It's not a shy bird by any stretch. Both times I've seen it perching visibly, if not prominently, and no demure singing here. No, the call pierces the atmosphere, head tossed back and cutting loose.

Of course, any written description doesn't do the bobwhite's enthusiastic vocalizing justice. I wanted to post a clip but it ran over what Blogger allows you to upload - once I find some free-but-good video editing software I'll post a shorter version. Of course, you can head over to Slybird's Biological Ramblings where you can see what the bird was up to this evening.

-

From The Cornell Lab: Art Opening

If you've visited Sapsucker Woods you very likely stepped inside the visitor center. And if you've stepped inside the visitor center, you very likely noticed the artwork that adorns the walls.

The "resident" art, of course, belongs to Louis Aggasiz Fuertes, but is periodically augmented with displays of more recent artists. Recent shows, for example, include paintings by Julie Zickefoose and the photographs of Floris van Breugel.

Yesterday a new show opened, "The Bird Artwork of Benjamin M. Clock." Paraphrased from the invitation, Ben's watercolors and drawings feature vocalizing and displaying birds in their habitats. Many of the works feature scenes from recent travels to the arctic tundra and the Caribbean hardwood hammocks while others were inspired from his work archiving and shooting natural history video for the Macaulay Library at the Lab of Ornithology.

If you are in the area, be sure to drop by to see Ben's work live and in person, and (or) check out his blog, Natural History Artworks.

-

From The Cornell Lab: Living Bird, Spring 2008

The latest issue of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's quarterly magazine, Living Bird, is now available online. The spring 2008 issue features Tim Gallagher "Birding the Northern Route" in Peru, Marie Read's portrait of Common Loons with "Spirit of the North," and Charles Eldermire pondering interactions between humans and birds in "Of Oystercatchers and Kayakers."

If that doesn't entice you, regular columnists Pete Dunne, Mel White, and Jack Conner contribute by focusing on needing new binoculars, Southeastern Arizona, and chickadee songs, respectively.

As always, along with the superb writing you'll find breathtaking images, and if you've read the hard copy version don't miss the web-only extras. Enjoy!

-

Nest Cams Feature: Chimney Swifts

My favorite type of post: brief and to the point! Very uncharacteristic for me, yes, but I'll try.

Just wanted to call attention to a very cool nest cam: an active Chimney Swift nest from near Buffalo, NY. The parents are busy feeding four fledglings that hatched on 04 July. Check out the streaming video, highlights, commentary, and join in the discussion at the NestCams website.

To whet your appetite, no pun intended (OK, yes it was!), here's a clip of feeding time from the video highlights.

-

New at The Cornell Lab: Rusty Blackbird Survey

The Rusty Blackbird seems to be a species that has been slipping under the radar. Maybe it's because they spend much of their time inaccessible to most birders, breeding far north in boggy boreal forests, wintering in swamps and wet woodlands, and not typically flocking with the other "nuisance" blackbirds. Part of it may be because they aren't as charismatic as other flashy passerines. Whatever the reasons, it's nearing tragic proportions, like the Passenger Pigeon and Ivory-billed Woodpecker before them: based on Breeding Bird Survey and Christmas Bird Count data, it's estimated their population has declined between 88 and 98% since 1966.

Nineteen sixty-six, people! That's not just modern era, that's immediate history, mostly within my lifetime. Let's think about it for a moment. The Beatles played their last concert in 1966 (and released Revolver), Bob Dylan released Blonde on Blonde and the Beach Boys released Pet Sounds; Star Trek debuted, the Dick Van Dyke Show aired it's last episode; the first Kwanzaa was celebrated and the Church of Satan was formed (note those two events are not related: the former happened in Long Beach, the latter in San Francisco).

OK, back to the point. Though the BNA Online account for the Rusty Blackbird points out difficulties in using existing data, it also highlights, "Numbers of winter Rusty Blackbirds in the s. U.S. need to be documented regularly and accurately."

I don't think it's an overstatement to say we need better data during migration and on the breeding ground, too.

Well, eBird is undertaking an effort to accurately generate more consistent documentation and asking your help. If you see a Rusty Blackbird, please submit your observations to eBird, whether you are within the focus period (April 1 - 7) or not - all observations are important!

Read more about the project on the eBird News and Features.

• Information about the Rusty Blackbird can be found at All About Birds | Bird Guide, Rusty Blackbird
• Rusty Blackbird image from Wikipedia.

New at The Cornell Lab: NestCams, NestWatch, and CamClicker

Birds are already nest building in the more southerly states and they're starting to check out nest boxes in spite of our lion-like winter weather. That is the perfect backdrop to report the addition of a new section to the Lab's web pages: NestCams!

The cams were originally developed as part of The Birdhouse Network, a citizen science project where participants monitor a nest boxes, or a trail of boxes, and submit the information to an ever-expanding database. The data help uncover details of breeding biology for over 30 species at a geographic scale a single researcher could not logistically track.

The nest cams are always the most visited of the Lab's web pages, and for good reason. Lots of species to observe, lots of interesting behaviors to witness that used to take place privately, behind the walls of a snag or a birdhouse. Now, it's all displayed and archived on the Internet allowing anyone to learn about the lives of their backyard neighbors.

So, what's new? There are a variety of features available from the main page at "NestCams.org".

First, check out the NestCams, described as, "A virtual window into the natural world: View our exciting live cams, explore our extensive collection of photo, video, and daily archives, and view HD footage of breeding behaviors from Macaulay Library." Note: you will not find anything about breeding behaviors of the staff of Macaulay Library, I already looked. You will find four cams are up-and-running right now, Barn Owls and Northern Flickers from California, Barn Owls and Wood Ducks from Texas. The Texas owl is incubating eight eggs (did I hear that right?), the Wood Duck is still laying - seven eggs at a recent count. There should always be four highlighted cams on the main page, with many more to come in the near future, accessed through the drop-down menu on the page.

Next, explore NestWatch data (and contribute, too!). NestWatch is a citizen science program that teaches people about bird breeding biology and engages them in collecting and submitting nest records, and it's not just about cavity-nesting species anymore. You don't need a nest box, just a nest you can monitor on a regular basis. Got a robin nest in an ornamental shrub? Find out how to monitor it and submit your observations!

Finally, join the newest and most innovative citizen science program, CamClickr. Over the years the Nest Cams have generated over 7,000,000 images, all of which are archived. In this project,

. . . participants move through two levels of behavior classification in an effort to tag and code all of our archived images! Users choose the species and phase of the nesting cycle they want to start off with and then launch Level 1.

In Level 1, you simply drag and drop images into photo albums that are classified according to presence or absence of nests, adult birds, eggs, or baby birds. Once you tag 99 images, you are ready to move to Level 2, where the classifications become more challenging! Every Level 1 image tagged earns you 1 point towards fun prizes!

In Level 2, all images that passed through Level 1 can now be classified according to pre-defined behaviors. Every image tagged in Level 2 earns 4 points towards fun prizes! Your tags will be compared with those of others and given a score based on how consistent they are with other users. Once individual images are tagged by 5 different users, they can be added to the searchable database that will be available to scientists and the public, to help us answer behavioral questions.

Soon our neighborhoods will be bustling with birdsong and the mad rush of adult birds caring for eggs, nestlings and fledglings. Enjoy!

New from The Cornell Lab: Citizen Science Central and eBird

There are two new additions I'm particularly excited about on the Lab's ever-growing web presence.

First, the Citizen Science ToolKit is available. Yeah, I call Conservation Science my home department and my title is "Research Biologist" (OK, that's what I call myself, technically I hold the rather obtuse title of "Extension Support Specialist II"). But Citizen Science is why I joined the Lab and what still overwhelmingly dominates my interest. Last June I participated in a conference that gathered representatives from varied disciplines to discuss citizen science as among other things a unique discipline unto itself and perhaps a way to coordinate all of the projects that currently exist. Further, a goal was to design a web site to bring together anyone interested in citizen science, encouraging discussion and collaboration, and ultimately creating a web site where anyone could go to discover existing projects or even create their own.

That site now exists and is fully functional at Citizen Science Central, a resource I hope you can use or will pass along.

Second, there is more data-out functionality on eBird. That means there are new ways to explore the database, querying the database about first- and last-dates and high counts. Now you can easily determine when are the hummingbirds expected back in your county, when the last wintering birds should depart from your region, and whether that huge raft of Aythya ducks is record setting or not. Learn more about these tools on the eBird web site, and then explore the movements of birds across the continent. Er, hemisphere, I already forgot South America was recently added . . . .

Ah, yes, more technology to empower your time spent in the field! Enjoy!

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!