POSTED FOR LEO WEIGANT:
When I received the latest "Scientific American" today, I was intrigued to find
a 4-page feature story on the value of "Citizen Science" to professionals,
focused largely on E-bird and its growth over the last 10 years.
The article mentions how much of modern meteorology, botany, and astronomy
grew out of amateurs' observations back into the19th-Century (viz. Thoreau's
meticulous records of earliest Spring-blooming plants in New England),
but its primary focus is clearly on how eBird metamorphosed out of the
Audubon Christmas Counts into scientifically sophisticated studies of
species' flourishing or diminishing through the seasons and through the last
ten years (see the article's almost glamorous map of July 5 sightings of
Willow Flycatchers.)
It also provides a history of the changes in eBird's organization, methods,
data collection and distribution of its data.
Well worth the 15 minute's read for any serious birder.
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