USGS-Bird Phenology Program

The North American Bird Phenology Program is the oldest bird monitoring program in the country, currently housing six million records and spanning 120 years. The records document bird migration arrival and departure times from around North America. This is an unparalleled and untapped resource which will help us to understand the scale of global climate change and how it is affecting bird populations across the country.

The original records were retrieved from long-term storage are now being scanned into pdf files and in the coming weeks, our website will allow participants nationwide to contribute to building a database from those files. However, the BPP relies solely on volunteers to both scan cards at the BPP office and to convert those files to our online database on our website. Scanning is a very simple, but time consuming process and we need volunteers to come to the BPP office and run migration cards through our automatic scanners.

Individuals, families, and small groups are welcome to help so if you are interested in helping document how spring and fall arrival times of birds have changed since the 1880's, and I hope you are, please visit us at www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bpp/ or contact Jessica Zelt at (301) 497-5745.