Birding Volunteers Needed

If you went birding with Mrs. Bruce Reid in 1933, you’d have been fortunate enough to spot both male and female ivory-billed woodpeckers. While we can't go back in time with our field guides and binoculars, birders can share these observations from the past by volunteering with the North American Bird Phenology Program to catalog 6 million handwritten notecards that represent nearly 900 bird species, some of which are now extremely rare or extinct.

Online volunteers are needed to transcribe scanned cards. To date, 184,000 cards have been scanned, including observations of barred owls, hooded orioles, Carolina parakeets and many more species. It is hoped that this project can help reveal connections between bird populations, migration and climate change.

Read more from the U.S. Geological Survey Newsroom, or visit the North American Bird Phenology Program to get involved.

Fountain Pen
Image © Luis Argerich