Citizen Science
The Bird Banding Laboratory: Records Going Back a Century
Volunteer banders have placed leg bands on over 78 million North American birds since 1920. Marius Doyle reads from the lab's recovery records.
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Citizen Science
The Great Backyard Bird Count: A Four-Day Snapshot
Every February, hundreds of thousands of people count birds for four days. Jasper Wynn examines what such a brief survey can and cannot show.
Citizen Science
NestWatch and the Quiet Discipline of Watching a Cavity
For two decades, NestWatch volunteers have produced one of the most detailed records of avian reproductive success in North America. Edith Crale visits a participant in upstate New York.
Citizen Science
The International Shorebird Survey: Volunteers Counting at the Tideline
Since 1974, an unusual network of amateur counters has tracked the shorebirds that move between the Arctic and Patagonia. Inara Khan walks a count site at Plum Island.
Species
The Mourning Dove's Quiet Decline
The breeding bird survey route runs from a gas station in Adams County, Ohio, up through 24.5 miles of farmland. In June 2026, the mourning dove count was 41. In June 1990 it was 112.
Citizen Science
Project FeederWatch and What the Numbers Have Quietly Shown
Forty years of counts at suburban bird feeders have produced an unusual dataset. Pell Murphy looks at what it has told us about a continent's winter birds.
Citizen Science
The Second Breeding Bird Atlas of Pennsylvania
After five years of fieldwork by 2,100 volunteers, the second Pennsylvania Breeding Bird Atlas is in print. Marius Doyle reads it slowly.
Habitat
Bluebird Trails in the Cul-de-Sac: One Suburban Yard in Cary, North Carolina
Margaret Eldridge has run a five-box bluebird trail through her cul-de-sac in Cary for nineteen years. The data tell a story about what suburban land can still do, when one person decides to do it.
Citizen Science
The Christmas Bird Count: 126 Years of a Strange Tradition
Frank Chapman started it in 1900 as an alternative to the holiday side-hunt. Edith Crale walks through what the count has become, and why its method still works.
Citizen Science
eBird at Twenty: The Quiet Revolution in Amateur Bird Data
When the Cornell Lab launched eBird in 2002, no one expected birders would file more than a hundred million checklists. Pell Murphy looks back at the numbers, and at the people who put them in.