Image: wood duck with chicks by Gabriel Foley
This event has been cancelled, but we hope to reschedule it in the future - please stay tuned!
Online: Tuesday, June 14, 2022, 7:00 PM EDT
Mapping Breeding Birds: The Maryland & DC Breeding Bird Atlas 3
Hear from regional Breeding Bird Atlas coordinators about this five-year project to document where and when birds in our area breed.
Where and when do the birds in our region breed? That question is being answered by the Maryland & DC Breeding Bird Atlas 3. Nearly all of the data for this five-year project are collected by volunteers using the popular eBird platform. Only two years in, these volunteers have already documented hundreds of thousands of breeding observations from every corner of the region—including species never found nesting in Maryland before.
In this Making a Home for Birds webinar presented by Audubon Society of Central Maryland, four of the project coordinators will join us to share details about the atlas, why it’s important, and how you can be involved. State coordinator Gabriel Foley will provide a project overview and county coordinators David Smith, Kathy Calvert, and Sue Muller will share highlights from their respective counties: Carroll, Frederick, and Howard.
After the webinar, on Saturday, June 18, feel free to join atlas coordinators at 7 a.m. for an optional atlas demonstration at our Audrey Carroll Sanctuary. The walk will introduce participants to a different way of watching birds. Atlasing is a more intimate birding experience that gives birders a glimpse into a bird's most important function: that of passing on its genes to the next generation through the act of breeding.
Rather than seeing and/or hearing a bird, identifying it, and moving on to the next species, we will slow down our bird watching to more closely monitor a bird’s behavior. In this way, we can potentially determine whether the bird is actively breeding and therefore can be documented for the atlas.
Walk leaders will explain various types of breeding behaviors and how they translate to specific breeding codes that can then be used to assign an observation to a breeding status category. We will also show participants how to use the eBird BBA3 app to enter their breeding bird checklists to the atlas database. No restroom facilities are available, and the walk will be cancelled in the event of inclement weather.
Registration is required to attend the webinar and/or walk. You may register to attend just the webinar, or the webinar as well as the June 18 walk; please be sure to select the appropriate option when you register. You may also choose a free registration, or choose to give a donation with your registration. Donations help us manage our nature preserves for the benefit of birds and other wildlife. Thank you for considering a contribution!