Only in silence the word,
only in dark the light,
only in dying life:
bright the hawk's flight
on the empty sky. *
Seeing the Invisible with Citizen Science
only in dark the light,
only in dying life:
bright the hawk's flight
on the empty sky. *
Seeing the Invisible with Citizen Science
We hardly think of birds as invisible, because we see them around us every day, but we see very little of their activities and lives throughout the year. For example, some birds migrate long distances every year, wintering in warm climates nearer the equator, then migrating to higher latitudes to breed in summer. That migration is, for the most part, invisible to us. Yet scientists and bird hobbyists know many details about migration; enough, for instance, to guide decisions about conservation strategies needed to protect specific birds throughout their lives and ranges.
Our vast knowledge of bird migration comes primarily from very simple, low-tech observations: records of sightings of specific birds by individual people, most of them not scientists -- many of whom simply enjoy birds. A recent, powerful means of building this knowledge is eBird, a set of free tools available through smart-phone apps and a website, that allows records of birdwatchers' sightings to be collected and built into displays of bird distribution and movement. eBird is one of the most spectacular examples of the power of citizen science. See Learn More About Citizen Science at the bottom of this page.
Learn More
Watch this Tutorial on using the eBird website to find out about sightings of specific birds in your area or any part of the world.
Main eBird site: https://ebird.org/explore
Instructions: Go here, choose Species Maps, enter date range, enter location (Maine), name your bird, find sightings and click map pins to explore them. Map pins do not appear until you zoom in close enough.
Look at these examples of how eBird records provide deep insights into bird migration.
Wood thrush (Hylocichla mustelina) movement through one year
Watching Birds on the Move
Did you know that birds migrate at night? Did you know that migrating birds are visible on weather radar? We cannot identify the birds that are moving, but we can compare densities of moving populations night-to-night and year-to-year. We can also see the effect of weather on migration, and predict what days might be particularly productive ones for birdwatching, or for mist-netting for banding or tracking.
Watch this Tutorial to learn how to view migration on weather radar.
Radar is a form of electromagnetic radiation (EMR*). Other forms of EMR include light (visible, infrared [IR], ultraviolet [UV]), radio (including television, cellular, and wi-fi), X-rays, and gamma rays. Go to Wikipedia to learn more about EMR and the electromagnetic spectrum.
[ An aside: EMR is not the same as radioactivity (though a few forms of radioactivity are EMR). Confusion between EMR and radioactivity has led to unwarranted fears of EMR. UV, X-rays, and gamma rays are about the only forms of EMR that are harmful, and their hazards are well understood. People who claim to be allergic to such types of EMR as wi-fi and cellular-phone signals have, shall we say, vivid imaginations. If anyone were actually allergic to these forms of EMR, they would be uncomfortable practically anywhere in the civilized world. EMR allergy is a myth. ]
Tracking Individual Birds
• Banding
This old fashioned and inefficient, but still widely used, way to track individual birds is by catching and banding them (called "ringing" in UK). Here is a brief introduction to banding. If you find a dead bird and it has a metal band on one of its legs, here's how to report it so it becomes part of an appropriate tracking data base.
• Electronic tracking
Real-time tracking of individual birds is expensive and labor intensive, but has produced discoveries of spectacularly long migration routes that would probably never have been discovered by any other methods. Read more about electronic tracking of wildlife.
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Learn More About Citizen Science
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* A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin, 1968
