iNaturalist & eBird
Citizen Science
Contributor Ongoing
I contribute regularly to iNaturalist and eBird, two large citizen science databases that catalogue life. Here is my eBird profile, and here is my iNaturalist profile.
iNaturalist is dedicated to all types of life, and I’ve now contributed over ten thousand observations over the past few years. One experience I had with iNaturalist was seeing if I could get over a thousand research-grade observations in New Zealand – at last count, I managed to identify and log over 750 confirmable species while traveling there. I also help maintain some projects, like Nocturnal Flight Calls.
eBird is specifically for counting and surveying bird populations, where I have also logged tens of thousands of observations. I’ve enjoyed logging birds in dozens of states and countries over the years, but also I’ve been largely active in my own state of Vermont. I used eBird to bird in every county in New England in 2020, and every town in Vermont in 2021. I’ve used it while participating in the Vermont eBird County Quest, the Forest Bird Monitoring Program, Mountain Birdwatch, Birder Broker, Christmas Bird Counts, the National Midwinter Bald Eagle Survey, and many other surveys, as well as generally using it every day for years. I no longer actively participate in some surveys (due to hearing loss), but continue to contribute actively elsewhere.
I am a reviewer for eBird, helping to ensure the integrity of the database, providing feedback for the platform, and assisting community contributors. I review records and hotspots for St. Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha – isolated, distant islands in the south Atlantic.
I also sometimes use other citizen science projects, like Xeno Canto, which is a database of bird audio recordings in Europe, which I mainly use for Nocturnal Flight Calls.
Some of my academic research has focused on citizen science websites like these.
The photo of the Common Raven is mine. I take a lot of nature photographs, which I also upload to these websites.
