About BirdPulse

What this is

Bird migration is the seasonal movement of birds between their breeding grounds and the places they spend the rest of the year. Twice a year — north in spring, south in fall — billions of birds shift across continents, tracking longer days, melting ice and the flush of insects and seeds that feed their journeys. Many travel at night, navigating by the stars, the setting sun and Earth’s magnetic field.

BirdPulse maps where birds are being seen right now, using sightings that birdwatchers submit to eBird, the global citizen-science project run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Each colored point is a recent report — a species, a count of individuals and a place — so you can watch the pulse of migration build, peak and fade across a region or follow a single species as it moves.

• 🧭 Why and how birds migratePhotoperiod, fuel and weather drive the journey; many species fly at night and can be picked up on weather radar.
• 🗺️ The world’s flywaysMigration concentrates along broad continental corridors — the Americas’ four flyways, plus major routes across Europe, Africa, Asia and the Pacific.
• 📝 How sightings are recordedeBird turns birdwatchers into a sensor network: checklists log species, counts, location, time and effort, anchored at shared hotspots.
• 📊 Reading migration countsCounts track reporting, not true abundance — effort and observer coverage shape the numbers, so read the timing, not the absolute total.

Birding ethics & contributing good data

BirdPulse is only as good as the sightings behind it. Watching responsibly protects the birds, and recording carefully makes your reports worth far more to everyone who uses them.

Data sources

• eBird (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) — Global citizen-science checklists — species, counts, locations, hotspots and notable-sighting reviews that power the live map.
• Cornell Lab of Ornithology — The research home of eBird and BirdCast; reference for migration science, radar-based forecasts and species information.
• GBIF — The Global Biodiversity Information Facility, which aggregates eBird and other occurrence records into a broader biodiversity dataset.

Frequently asked

Do the counts show how many birds are really there?

No. The counts show how many birds people reported, which depends on how many birders were out and how hard they looked. More reports near cities or on fine weekends mean more observers, not more birds — so read the timing and trends, not the raw totals.

When is migration at its peak?

There are two peaks: northbound in spring and southbound in fall. Exact timing varies by species and latitude, but spring migration generally builds over several weeks and fall is more drawn-out. Watching reports of a species surge and fade is the clearest way to see its window.

Where do the sightings come from?

From eBird, the citizen-science platform run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Birdwatchers submit checklists of what they saw, with counts, location, time and effort, and BirdPulse plots the recent ones as live points on the map.

Why are some areas covered in points and others empty?

Coverage follows people. Reports cluster near towns, roads, trails and popular hotspots, and thin out where few birders go. An empty-looking region is usually under-watched rather than birdless — the gaps reflect observers, not the birds.

Can I trust a rare-bird report?

Confirmed ones, yes. When a report is unexpected for a place or season it is flagged as ‘notable’ and reviewed, and observers are asked to back it with photos, audio or notes. That review process is what keeps a single misidentification from distorting the map.