Wednesday, April 1, 2020

The New “Birds of the World” Website

Seabirds are truly Birds of the World, including the Laysan Albatross that ranges throughout the north Pacific north of the Equator.
Songbirds provide amazing variety to the Birds of the World, including such colorful species as a Yellow-crowned Bishop. Learn all about this species, and any other birds by referring to Birds of the World, an amazing new website (photos by Paul Konrad).
Birds of the World describes all 67 species of plovers found worldwide, including the Crowned Lapwing, which ranges from a broad area of Southern Africa through East Africa.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has expanded their authoritative website that previously described the Birds of North America in authoritative species profiles that we have all relied on for basic and advanced information, songs, and photographs of specific species. Now, the similarly structured new Birds of the World website has added a wealth of information about all 10,500-plus birds of the world on one website!

In the words of the Director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, John Fitzpatrick, Birds of the World is made up of the combination of the expansive library of information provided by the Cornell Lab’s assets: the former Birds of North America and Neotropical Birds, the ever-growing eBird and Macaulay Library, and the recent acquisition of the exclusive digital rights to all the content from Lynx Edicions’ Handbook of the Birds of the World.

Dr. Fitzpatrick explained: “Integrating all these assets has allowed us to produce an extraordinary new web portal under the capable leadership of former eBird project leader Brian Sullivan. Birds of the World presents a vast but accessible array of information about every species, subspecies, and family of the world’s birds. Species accounts include images, sounds, and videos – including thousands from Lynx’s Internet Bird Collection – plus all the stunning illustrations from the Handbook volumes, maps and animations from eBird, and authoritative text from all of the component projects.

“We will maintain the site as a living system, engaging a huge network of collaborators around the world to help keep species accounts current with new text, media, updated literature references, distribution changes, and taxonomic updates. True to the Cornell Lab’s founding objective to bridge scientific ornithology with the popular appeal of birds and birding, our newest hub is nothing short of ‘bird diversity at your fingertips.’ We invite you and the world to participate.”

Certainly, all birders welcome this monumental achievement and the power of having such a remarkable information source at our fingertips, as do professional biologists. Keep in mind, all North American species are included, plus birds from around the globe. Be sure to visit the new website and begin using it as your primary information source to learn more about the world of birds that surrounds us everywhere we go! You can now access Birds of the World at https://birdsoftheworld.org/

For more of a historic perspective about the parts and parcels of the dynamic website, Birds of the World, refer to Dr. John Fitzpatrick’s original article at https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/news/welcome-to-bow

One hitch is that Birds of the World is subscription-based, but it’s worth every penny to sign up for the monthly account and support this valiant effort to share All the Birds of the World for a small monthly fee (that can be canceled at any time). That’s the way its predecessor worked – Birds of North America – so that may not be a change to previous users. Even so, you can access the website and review a variety of species accounts anytime. From our perspective, this is The best tool in any birder’s home or pocket – wherever you get an internet connection – which can be considered as important as binoculars and a field guide to us all.

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