Thanks so much, Jane! ?I have now signed up with eBird and was able to submit the Townsend's solitaire I saw in Kirkland last December (yay!). ?Will try to remember to keep my sightings up-to-date now. ?
Peggy Mundy


----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Jane Hadley <hadleyj1725 at gmail.com>
To: "Tweeters, Dear" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Monday, September 11, 2017 2:50 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] Some Birding Resources

Welcome, Peggy Mundy, to Tweeters! Peggy mentioned that she looks forward to learning about birding resources from Tweeters. A year or two ago, I put together a list of birding resources for another project and thought I would update the list and share it here for those who might be interested.
1. eBird ? A major database where birders enter their sightings and photos. The data is available to be used by scientists and other birders. This Cornell University Lab of Ornithology database provides a wealth of information about sightings, seasonal occurrence and geographical distribution of species.
Go to:http://help.ebird.org/customer/en/portal/topics/439564-getting-started/articles
There is a Pacific Northwest version of eBird with Northwest-specific articles and other content, including opportunities to participate in citizen science projects. Go to: http://ebird.org/content/nw/
2. Birder's Dashboard - This is a non-commercial, user-friendly website (with desktop and mobile or cell phone versions) that shows recent sightings reported to eBird. You can see notable sightings in a state, sightings by county, sightings near any spot you click on on a map, sightings of a particular species you select, or sightings at designated hotspots in the state or province you select. There is a Washington State and a US/Canada version. The Washington State version allows you to get sightings for the whole state or for any of the 39 counties you select. Go to: http://birdingwashington.info/dashboard/wa/
For the United States and Canada version, select a state or a province to look for recent sightings. Go to: http://birdingwashington.info/dashboard/
Click on the ?Mobile? button to see the mobile or cell phone version.
3. A Birder's Guide to Washington, Second Edition - This is a 613-page guide to the best birding sites throughout the state with information about how to get there (including maps), the habitat, the climate, the birds, etc. The guide also includes bar graphs for all annually occurring birds, showing their seasonal abundance in both Eastern and Western Washington, as well as an annotated checklist of the 510 species seen in Washington as of 2015.
The content of this book was placed online this year so that it can be updated with current information. You can either buy the book (Seattle Audubon's Nature Store, Buteo Books, Amazon.com, Powell Books, etc.) or you can view it online at http://wabirdguide.org

This website is a good place to check for current information before you head out to a birding spot.
4. Seattle Audubon's BirdWeb - This is a fount of information about bird species found in the state. It gives a description of each species that helps with ID, range map for that species, song recordings, and information about habitat, behavior, diet, conservation, and occurrence in Washington by location and season. Go to: http://birdweb.org
5. The official state checklist - The checklist (515 species as of October 2016) of all the species ever seen in the state is available on the WOS website in either Excel format or as a one-page printable document. Go to: http://wos.org/records/checklist/
6. Washington Ornithological Society (WOS) - WOS was chartered in 1988 to increase knowledge of the birds of Washington and to enhance communication among all persons interested in those birds.
WOS provides a forum for birders from throughout the state to meet and share information on bird identification, biology, population status, and birding sites. Over 400 enthusiastic birders? from backyard feeder watchers to professional ornithologists?belong to WOS. Membership is open to all persons interested in birds and birding.
The WOS website offers a variety of resources, including official checklists, an online form for reporting rare sightings, announcement of field trips and speakers for monthly meetings, descriptions of some key birding sites around the state, a listing of Christmas Bird Counts around the state, descriptions of bird research projects, downloadable copies of articles in WOS's scholarly journal (Washington Birds), and ability to search 27 years of newsletters (which includes Washington Field Notes).
Go to: http://wos.org
7. Audubon Washington's Great Washington State Birding Trail maps - Available either as glossy color brochures, which can be purchased for $4.95 from Seattle Audubon Nature Shop, as a free downloadable .pdf, or as a phone app for $9.99. These maps show the location of key birding spots in seven different regions of the state.
Go to: http://wa.audubon.org/birds/great-washington-state-birding-trail
Scroll down and find the region you're interested in and then click on the "Read more" link. When you get to that page, click on the blue link at the beginning of the text, giving the name of the region. It will take you to a downloadable .pdf of the map.
8. County checklists - Available at the Washington Birder website, headquarters for birders who list sightings by county. The one-page, printable checklists show abundance codes (the parentheses after the species name) for each species found in that county. Code 1 is the most common, while Code 5 is a bird that has fewer than five sightings in the county.
Go to http://www.wabirder.com/county_map_pages.html
9. Local Audubon chapters - Many chapters offer regular field trips for beginners and intermediate birders and classes. Seattle Audubon offers the advanced Master Birder class.

To find a chapter near you, go to http://wa.audubon.org/chapters-centers, click on the + sign in the upper left corner of the map to blow up the map and find a red dot near you. Click on the red dot to get the name and more information of the chapter.
10. Other links:
+ Magnuson Park Geography https://goo.gl/SJIWy1 + Montlake Fill map (possibly not current because of SR-520 "mitigation") http://goo.gl/fRXGMm + Gull Identification (look at right-side column for links) http://goo.gl/LXbZBe + Dennis Paulson's Wing Photos Page http://goo.gl/tniWoa + Birdsongs http://www.xeno-canto.org/ + SORA (Searchable Ornithological Research Archive) https://sora.unm.edu/ + All about bird anatomy https://goo.gl/exzh2q _______________________________________________
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