Get reliable rangeland science

A collaborative enterprise with hundreds of partner organizations, thousands of regional experts, and hundreds of thousands of users, eBird is managed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. eBird is a desktop and mobile app and database that hosts data documenting bird distribution, abundance, habitat use, and trends through checklist data collected within a simple, scientific framework. eBird is among the world’s largest biodiversity-related science projects, with more than 100 million bird sightings contributed annually. Birders enter when, where, and how they went birding, and then fill out a checklist of all the birds seen and heard during the outing. eBird’s free mobile app allows offline data collection anywhere in the world, and the website provides many ways to explore and summarize your data and other observations from the global eBird community.

The Partners in Flight (PIF) Population Estimates Database is intended to: provide access to the latest USA/Canada landbird population estimates at a variety of geographic scales (global, continental, national, Bird Conservation Region, state and province), provide transparency on the methods, assumptions, data sources, and species-specific correction factors used by PIF to create these estimates. The PIF population estimates have been updated to incorporate measures of uncertainty as described by Stanton et al. 2019. Estimates for any species or region of interest can be viewed online or downloaded as Excel files from each page. Downloadable files include all pertinent information behind these estimates, including data sources, correction factors, and ranges of uncertainty, as described in the revised Handbook to the Population Estimates Database.

The Avian Conservation Assessment Database (ACAD) contains biological information used and generated by the Partners In Flight (PIF) Species Assessment Process, a peer-reviewed, scientific methodology for evaluating information related to the conservation of birds. The PIF Population Estimates Database provides breeding population estimates for all landbird species in the continental USA and Canada at various spatial scales (e.g., global, regional, state/provincial). ACAD uses Bird Conservation Regions (BCRs) as the geographic scale for regional assessments in the U.S. and Canada, but other regions are used in Mexico and countries are used in Central America. The vast majority of these estimates are derived from the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS). The Population Estimates Database and corresponding Handbook are products of the PIF International Science Committee and are intended to serve as a companion to the Partners in Flight Landbird Conservation Plan (Rosenberg 2016). The assessment scores can be viewed online, or downloaded with additional information.

The Rocky Mountain Avian Data Center serves as the portal for avian information collected by the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies and our collaborators in the Rocky Mountains, Great Plains, and Intermountain West. This map-based interfface allows users to view, query, and download data about density, occupancy, species counts for bird species of interest.

The Avian Knowledge Network (AKN) provides a platform for data organization, sharing and coordination of standardized monitoring efforts, as well as data analysis and visualization tools. The AKN is composed of multiple nodes in different geographical areas. The network and its nodes provide a number of tools for data entry, sharing, and analysis. The AKN resources can be used by a variety of audiences for a number of purposes including, but not limited to, aiding in decisions about conservation actions, project siting, or just learning about bird status and occurrence.

The National Drought Mitigation Center provides access to a number of tools developed by the University of Nebraska to help ranchers monitor drought. This Managing Drought on the Ranch toolkit provides access to tools that can help landowners and managers understand current drought conditions, how they compare to previous years, what they can expect interms of forage production for the coming year, if they are likely to recieve rain that can help with forage production in the current year, and learn about options for managing drought. The Managing Drought on the Ranch toolkit is linked to a downloadable guide that managers and ranchers can use to develop a drought plan. The Managing Drought on the Ranch website contains a wealth of other information to learn about drought and what actions one can take to respond to dought. See CCAST webinar about the Managing Drought Risk on the Ranch toolkit and guide here: https://youtu.be/nIGerxDY4ms?t=2648

iNaturalist ia a tool (web and phone based application) that helps users identify and learn about plant and animal species. It is also a helpful tool to record and share observations and can be used as a platform for citizen science initiatives. iNaturalist also contains open data that can be used by all.

Produced by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Birds of the World tool provides comprehensive life histories for all bird species and families.

The Rapid Avian Information Locator (RAIL) tool allows the user to query a specific geographic location and return a list of birds that are known to occur in that area based on the underlying data in the Avian Knowledge Network (AKN), along with a wealth of information about those birds including their conservation status and population size at various scales. The tool imports information from the Partners in Flight (PIF) Avian Conservation Assessment Database (ACAD) and the PIF Population Estimates Database, and also incorporates other supplemental information (e.g. conservation status on multiple scales, clutch size, bird weight, size and diet, primary habitat, photos and range maps) that might be helpful for permitting and making conservation and management decisions for birds.

The NatureServe Explorer is a conservation database that contains information on over 100,000 plants, animals, and the ecosystems they live in. Users can search through information by location, species status, and species classification.