BCN Census Hotspots

All Chicago area birders can now make a contribution to our knowledge of bird populations and movements by recording observations on the recently expanded BCN website hosted by Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology. Whenever you visit a Chicago-area "hotspot," all you need to do is to record the total numbers of each species that you observed and the time you spent at the site. Then go to the BCN reporting site http://www.ebird.org/BCN and enter the data.  Click here for More information regarding how to use the BCN eBird website.

This is a special, Chicago-area version of eBird, and using it will ensure that your data is shared with the people who maintain the public lands our birds use. You don't need a special password to report these "timed observations"--although current monitors who are reporting on transects and point counts will continue to use their BCN passwords for those reports. On this site, you can view results of all the observations made in the Chicago region.  After you enter data, you can get a report of your observations that can be copied and transferred to other files or messages. All your observations are kept together in a file for you, so this site not only contributes to local and national understanding of bird distribution, but it can serve as your personal record-keeping site.

Here's the initial list of Chicago-area 210+ hotspots, with latitude-longitude coordinates rounded to 4 decimals. You can immediately and easily report observations for any of these sites. Check the list on the website because additional sites will be added from time to time. To get a site added to the list, contact Lee Ramsey [].