Citizen Science Projects

Napa-Solano Audubon Society offers many opportunities for volunteers--"citizen scientists"--to help gather the raw data that helps us understand wild bird populations, the first step toward protecting them. Of course watching birds is fun and worthwhile by itself, but keeping records and sharing these with the community as part of a field monitoring project makes the activity much more valuable--and no less fun! These projects do not require a huge time commitment; they simply make birding more interesting!

Christmas Bird Counts

Christmas Bird Counts are 1-day events sponsored by Audubon chapters accross the country. Each Christmas count takes place sometime during a 3-week period beginning in mid-December, and focuses on a fixed area defined by a 15 mile diameter circle. Teams of birders are assigned to specific areas within the circle, where they record the species and estimate the numbers seen. Napa-Solano Audubon organizes 2 different counts: The Benicia Christmas Count, in Solano County, and the Angwin Christmas Count, in Napa County.

Solano County Breeding Bird Atlas

A Breeding Bird Atlas (BBA) is a collection of data about all of the bird species that breed in a particular region. Generally the end result includes a map for each nesting species that shows the areas of confirmed nesting activity. After completing the Napa County BBA project in 2003, Napa-Solano Audubon initiated the Solano County BBA project in 2005. The project is far from complete. Read more

Other Monitoring Projects Nearby

There are many other field monitoring projects sponsored by other agencies within Napa & Solano counties or very nearby. Many of these projects need volunteers. Click here to see a list.

Monitoring on Your Own: eBird

eBird is a web site where you can login and maintain your birding records in an international shared database of bird observations. The NSAS website has pages which show information from the eBird database about bird observations in Napa and Solano counties. Read more

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