The Brookline Bird Club has almost 80 years of field trip reports that we’d like to add to eBird. As one of the oldest bird clubs in the United States, our archive of field trip data is a potentially rich source of information for researchers studying long term population trends, as well as helping inform current conservation efforts within the state.

Currently, the oldest report in eBird for Mt Auburn is from 19th May, 1957. This was a solid twelve warbler day. Missing from that list – Northern Cardinal (first eBird report for Mt Auburn 1967), Northern Mockingbird (1964), Tufted Titmouse (1970), Red-bellied Woodpecker (1991). The BBC trip reports contain a huge amount of data on the rise and fall of these and other species from many of the key birding locations in the state, including Mt Auburn reports from as far back as 1939.

Reports from the last 25 years of birds from the State Species of Concern List will be evaluated for possible submission to the MA department of wildlife. A list of those species can be found here: www.mass.gov/service-details/list-of-vertebrates

The club has scanned decades worth of field trip cards, but needs help converting those images to a format than can be uploaded to eBird. We’re looking for volunteers to help transcribe data from the field card images onto spreadsheets. The only requirements are a willingness to commit a useful amount of time to the project, and a keen attention to detail. We estimate that it could take up to about 20 hours to transcribe the data for recent years (“America’s most active bird club!”); less for the earlier years. If you can only commit to working on a single year’s worth of data over the course of many months, that’s fine. This will be a marathon, not a sprint.

If you’re interested in helping, please contact David Scott for further details: davidscott6@yahoo.co.uk

Completed club field trip card from May 20, 1939.