North American Bird Phenology Program

Greetings!

The North American Bird Phenology Program (BPP) has continued to grow in office and online participants as well as cards scanned and transcriptions completed online. I am very proud to announce our current progress:

· Migration Cards Scanned in the BPP Office: 272,766
· Migration Cards Currently Available Online: 124,424
· Migration Cards Transcribed Online: 135,584
· Number of Online Transcribers: 1,329

To see a full list of the species that have been scanned in the office and how many cards have been scanned of that species, please visit: http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bpp/DataAndStats.cfm.
The BPP team: Kevin Laurent, computer expert, and Kinard Boone, website designer, and Eric Tuner volunteer programmer, are continuing to make additions and revisions to both the data entry process and website. Please see below to check out what we are working on and email me at jzelt@usgs.gov with suggestions!
The Frequently Asked Questions page has recently been updated. Please look for changes and email me with any further suggestions.

What you can expect to see soon:
· Participants can choose which species or which locations he/she would like to transcribe.
· Updated website coming soon with new homepage layout and additional content

In an effort to showcase some of the hardworking online participants from around the world, I would like to ask you all to send in photos of you transcribing migration cards. Please email along with the picture, along with your name and location. A handful of the photos will be selected and highlighted on the “Featured Photos” webpage.
In some exciting news, the BPP will be featured in the July/August issue of Audubon Magazine which is expected be released at the end of June. Pick up a copy!
Thank you to the office volunteers who take time each week to scan migration cards! It has become a challenge to keep up with the feverish pace of the online transcribers and I appreciate their dedication to keeping everything running smoothly. We are, however, always in need of additional office volunteers. If you are in the Maryland/Washington D.C. area, and would like to help, please contact the BPP Office.
Please contact me if you have any questions or comments and don’t forget to check out the BPP website for more information.

Sincerely,
Jessica Zelt

Citizen Science

Online Volunteers are Being Recruited to Support Climate Research

Volunteers can assist researchers to better understand historic and current life cycles of plants and animals, by participating in phenology.

There are six million personal observations about bird migrations written down on note cards and stored away in vintage government file cabinets. Collected as part of the North American Bird Phenology Program (BPP), the observations reflect ninety years of data on the migration paths and distribution of birds across North America for a better than ninety year period.

A Window into Climate Change
Researchers have come to recognize the value of the BPP data as a cornerstone in study of climate change and its effects on birds. The most immediate problem scientists have now is transcribing the data into a database that will be useful for research and they are looking for the public’s help.

In a press release announcing renewed interest in the historic data, Coordinator of the North American Bird Phenology Program at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center says, "These cards, once transcribed, will provide over 90 years of data, an unprecedented amount of information describing bird distributions, migration timing, and migration pathways and how they are changing. There is no other program that has the same historical depth of information that can help us understand the effect that global climate change has on bird populations across the country. When combined with current information, scientists will better understand how birds are responding to climate change and how to develop tools to help manage that change, especially for at-risk species."

The effort to document the historic movement of birds in North America was started by Wells W. Cooke in 1880 to better understand and expand the knowledge of their migrations. Renowned naturist C. Hart Merriam expanded the program throughout the United States and Canada through the use of volunteer observers. There were 3,000 volunteers working within the program during the late 1880s and the Federal government kept the program active until 1970. Scientific interest in the bird migration records caused the program to be reopened in 2008.

Researchers describe the collection of observation cards as a treasure trove of natural history. Concerned USGS employees kept track of the card’s locations while the program was extinguished. Fortunately they survived the period of disinterest with no apparent harm. Participants in the BPP recorded bird names, location and dates of arrival, departure and peaks of abundance. The cards often bear personal remarks about a significant sighting or event.

Get involved today!

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I have been transcribing cards off and on since March, and I must say, it is VERY interesting to think about all these volunteers, from Boy Scouts, to Park Rangers, to Citizen Scientists like us, all putting pen to paper to note what they were seeing. As technology changes there is always the need to bring the old data into the next century. I would hate for these folks' work to be in vain.