Data Collection

eBird

Data is primarily and preferrentially collected using the eBird mobile app. After the day's data collection, we recommend and encourage folks to send their Area Leads their Trip Report.

We recommend that first time or newer users to the app enroll in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's free eBird Essentials course.

Help Center info and FAQs can be found here.

Here are some helpful intro videos: 

Datasheets

Feeder Watch Instructions

The purpose of the feeder watcher program is to determine the highest number of each species seen on your feeders and the area around your feeding station. Your complete feeder watch observation has two parts:

1. The Checklist: a list of the highest number of each bird species you saw

2. Effort: the time you spent watching and counting, and the number of observers in your household who contributed.

Checklists without effort data cannot be accepted.

How to Count

Usually the same birds are coming and going so you will need to take a visual “snapshot” and tell us the highest number of each species you counted at a single glance during the entire observation period. Please do not add a count to one taken several minutes earlier—you are counting some of the same birds twice. If you saw 4 chickadees at 11:00 and 6 chickadees at 11:15, the count is six, not ten. In species where males and females can be easily discriminated, such as juncos and house finches, counting the sexes separately will yield more accurate results.

Timing

The observation is timed, so please record the beginning of your watch, the end point, and report your elapsed total as hrs. x where x equals a fraction of the final hour. This can be accomplished while you are doing chores, working around home, and so forth as long as you are checking and counting at regular and constant intervals. If you leave home, stop the clock. Time spent on errands away from home does not count.

Matters can get tricky in households with multiple observers and feeding areas:

• Two or more watchers observing one feeding area should contribute to one checklist and share one observation period.

• Two or more watchers in one household independently covering separate feeding areas keep separate checklists and times, but submit one document with the highest number of each species culled from the lists and a grand total of the observation periods. Do not add up your species counts, only the time values—remember the visual “snapshot” metaphor?

Reporting

Email your results to your Area Lead the afternoon of Count Day, or as soon as possible. Each household should submit only one checklist, which must include the effort data.

Information courtesy of the Concord CBC: https://concordcbc.org/how-to/become-a-feeder-watcher/