Yellow-headed Blackbird ©Kelli O’Neill
California Breeding Bird Atlas – How You Can Help
Yolo Bird Alliance is a founding partner in the statewide effort to produce the first Breeding Bird Atlas in California. The atlas will document the population status, geographic distribution and breeding activity of every species in every county, ideally in every corner of every county. Such information is a huge help for deciding where to put local conservation projects and for evaluating the success of earlier ones, and it can show trends in abundance of the bird life of the county.
The project aims to run for five consecutive years and will cover the entire state. The atlas will be organized along the same lines as in the forty-four other states that have them, with the county divided into roughly three-mile square blocks aligned on the grids of US Geological Survey topographic maps, about one hundred blocks in all.
We are asking our members and everyone else to document breeding activity observed anywhere in the county and throughout the state. This may include your backyard, parking lots, neighborhood parks….anywhere. You can document the breeding activity you see in Ebird using the California atlas portal.
It takes 2 Minutes to Join the Atlas Project!
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| Simply click “Join Project” (or “Log In to Join Project”), and you will automatically be able to contribute checklists to the Atlas project.
How to submit your checklists: On mobile (app) | The Atlas is fully integrated with the eBird mobile app. This Quick Start Tutorial video provides a brief overview of how to submit your first Atlas checklist. On the website (desktop or mobile browser) | You can also submit checklists by entering your observation details and clicking “Submit” on the CBA eBird site. Please visit the Atlas ‘About’ page here for resources, basic guidance, and everything you need to begin contributing to this statewide initiative. |
Yolo Bird Alliance board member Zane Pickus is the CBA regional coordinator for Yolo County, and he will provide updates on the progress of the project in his monthly Burrowing Owl Recent Sightings column. Contact Zane if you have any questions at: yolobirdalliance@gmail.com
You can also check the numbers at the California Bird Atlas ebird site for the Yolo county anytime at: https://ebird.org/atlascalifornia/county/US-CA-113
For the statewide atlas statistics visit: https://ebird.org/atlascalifornia/state/US-CA