AnnuAl RepoRt to membeRs | 2012 - Cornell Lab of Ornithology

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Technology:Gathering the DataThe power of birders and technologyFifteen years ago, programmers at the Cornell Lab harnessed the power ofthe Internet to launch the world’s first online citizen-science project—the Great Backyard Bird Count. Ever since, they’ve continued to innovatenew ways to engage birders in gathering, sharing, and exploring massiveamounts of data for science and conservation. This year, a revolutionary newapp called BirdLog enabled birders to upload their sightings from the fieldin real-time from iPhones and Androids. As bird observations submitted toeBird surpassed the 100 million mark this year, scientists made huge stridesin mining the data to reveal new insights about bird migration.Sensors for the Night skyFor millennia, humans have heard the fleeting sounds of birds migrating atnight, but only in recent years have technological breakthroughs made it possibleto reveal the details at many locations, night after night. By modifyingautonomous recording units (ARUs) initially developed to listen to whalesin the ocean, Cornell Lab engineers have created terrestrial ARUs that havecaptured nearly 18 terabytes of sound data from the night sky. These recordingsreveal millions of birds that utilize travel corridors, including those thatfly over an area overnight and are never seen. Someday, birders might helptrack nocturnal migration across the continent by mounting ARU-type unitson their rooftops.Chestnut-sided Warblers fly across the Gulf of Mexico on theirannual migrations. New maps based on eBird data reveal that theytake different paths in spring and fall, north through the westernGulf and Texas, and south via the eastern Gulf and Florida.Night Flight ListenerAndrew Farnsworth has a rare talent: Hecan identify North American birds by earat night, and he’s driven to find out whatthose calls can tell us about migration.As a Cornell graduate student, he createdthe “Rosetta Stone” for warblers—a catalogof flight calls for 48 species of migrantwarblers—and studied how these callsvary depending on evolutionary history,weather, migration density, and otherfactors. Now a Lab researcher, Farnsworth’sdeeply specialized expertise is vital to Labefforts to monitor night flights and protectflyways for these unseen migrations.Philip MontgomeryChestnut-sided Warbler by Michael Furtman6
From observation to impactFinding The MeaningSeeing soundA human being would have to devote 12 years of 24/7, nonstop listening toanalyze the millions of nocturnal flight calls collected by the Lab’s autonomousrecording units. And that person would need encyclopedic knowledge of nearly24,000 types of calls made by 62 species. That’s why Lab programmers are creatingautomated detection software that uses artificial intelligence to detect flightcalls, convert them into visual spectrograms for analysis, and identify whichspecies constitute the huge migratory flocks that fly overhead in the night sky.Mapping MigrationWith millions of bird observations from citizen-science projects, Lab scientists arenow creating unprecedented, sophisticated maps of bird migration. These STEM(Spatio-Temporal Exploratory Model) maps combine eBird data with hundredsof environmental variables to show the expected occurrence for bird specieseach week of the year at more than 130,000 locations across the lower 48 states,revealing new insights about the dynamics of North American bird migration.Helping the BirdsGerrit VynSafer spots, and times, for wind turbinesUsing new maps based on eBird data,scientists can identify the migratorycorridors birds rely on for safe passagebetween breeding and winteringgrounds. The Lab and The NatureConservancy are helping the NewYork State Energy, Research, and DevelopmentAuthority evaluate placeswhere wind energy developmentshould be avoided. Lab researchersare also using ARUs at existing windturbine sites to track night flight callsand identify the peak migration timeswhen turbines should be powereddown to avoid bird collisions.This STEM probability-ofoccurrencemap for YellowWarbler during fall migrationshows the importanceof shrub/forested wetlandstopover sites in the HudsonValley and along the LakeOntario and Erie shorelines.“And Now for Your Weekend Bird Forecast…”Imagine a day when the local TV news weather segment includes a forecast of birdsmigrating through your area. It’s happening today at the Lab through a partnershipwith Oregon State University and NOAA to produce BirdCast—a weekly report thatuses eBird and STEM maps to track the migration in real time and forecast whenand where birds are headed next. Someday BirdCast could be provided to meteorologiststo educate the public about bird migration. And for conservation, BirdCastcould be helpful in advising cities when to dim lights on buildings and towers toreduce the hundreds of millions of bird deaths from collisions every year.7
Page 1: Annual Report to members | 2012
Page 8: TechnologyGlobal reachOur Model:“
Page 11 and 12: yProviding what international partn
Page 13 and 14: Our Innovating Model: the Means Eng
Page 15 and 16: Birding can be a powerful force for
Page 17 and 18: In fall 2012, the joint project wit
Page 19 and 20: Innovating Inspiring Anyone, the Me
Page 21 and 22: Discovering birds, connecting to na
Page 23 and 24: A letter toOur donors2012 was a mil
Page 25 and 26: donors$100,000 and upMr. and Mrs. R
Page 27 and 28: Dr. Thomas J. DelaneyMr. William E.
Page 29 and 30: Sapsucker Woods SocietyRecognizing
Page 31: Fiscal Year 2012Financial REport(Ju

AnnuAl RepoRt to membeRs | 2012 - Cornell Lab of Ornithology

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