Citizen Science Project Reporting Backyard Wildlife
Help the Wildlife Federation, Cornell University Labs, the National Audubon Society and others by simply reporting wildlife in your backyard. It’s easy, you can do it online! Please participate in just one of these citizen science projects. It’s a fun activity you can do with kids by letting them report their own wildlife or bird sightings and the different programs offer varied learning experiences for children. They can learn to id bird species or assist when monitoring a bird’s nest. Such activities can help kids build an awareness of the creatures in their environment.
Check out the following programs you can be active in:
eBird -Audubon and Cornell Lab of Ornithology – This is a great tool. A birder (or backyard bird watcher) simply enters when, where, and how they observed birds, then fills out a checklist of the birds seen and heard during the outing. eBird provides various options for data gathering including point counts, transects, and area searches.
Great Backyard Bird Count – an annual four-day event that engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent. Anyone can participate, from beginning bird watchers to experts. It takes as little as 15 minutes on one day, or you can count for as long as you like each day of the event.
NestWatch – a continentwide citizen-science project and nest-monitoring database of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, funded by the National Science Foundation and developed in collaboration with the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.
Project FeederWatch – a winter-long survey of birds that visit feeders at backyards, nature centers, community areas, and other locales in North America. FeederWatchers periodically count the birds they see at their feeders from November through early April and send their counts to Project FeederWatch. FeederWatch data help scientists track broadscale movements of winter bird populations and long-term trends in bird distribution and abundance.
Project PredatorWatch – A citizen science project to determine the extent of predation on birds at bird feeders and in people’s backyards. Your help is critical in determining how many and what types of birds are killed by cats, dogs, and other predators at bird feeders. This information will be useful to scientists and conservationists, and may be compiled and reported in scientific journals and other publications.
Wildlife Watch – National Wildlife Federation’s Wildlife Watch is a national, nature-watching program created for people of all ages. Through the program you can share details that help National Wildlife Federation track the health and behavior of wildlife and plant species nationwide. In return, the Wildlife Watch website keeps you up-to-date on wildlife news and facts, and new ideas for attracting wildlife to your backyard and community.
Make a Bird Fruit Treat Recipe
This is a great round-up of citizen science projects for wildlife gardeners and wildlife lovers. Thanks for putting it together. I’m linking to it this coming Saturday in my weekly “Best of the Web” at Ecosystem Gardening.
@CB4wildlife
I came through to read from Carole’s blog. I’d no idea there are so many ways to get involved. Thanks for the list @AlisonKerr