Help Center

eBird has all kinds of ways for you to explore and learn about birds. Checklist data from eBird, media from the Macaulay Library, and identification tips from Merlin all combine here to place an unparalleled resource at your fingertips. 

An eBird account may be required

Some of the Explore functions described below require a free eBird account to access. This prevents us from exceeding the website activity limits set by Google Maps and also helps to keep our data exploration tools functional and your eBird observations safe.

Creating an eBird account is 100% free and easy. To get started, go to eBird.org and click on the green 'Create account' button in the top right corner of the page.

Quick Links

Explore Species:

• Species profiles - photos, audio recordings, description, and stats
• Species maps 

Explore Regions and Hotspots:

• Explore regions
• Explore Hotspots

For Mobile Devices: 

• eBird Mobile Explore

Explore Page Features:

• eBirding This Month and Year
• Regional Content from Partner Networks
• Trip Reports
• Species List
• Printable Checklist
• Illustrated Checklist
• Bar Charts and Graphs
• Explore Subregions
• Other Features

Explore Species

Species Profiles

You can explore all the world’s bird species through Explore Species in eBird! Each species profile includes live observation maps, reporting stats, media, and a short description of the species. eBird also shows whether you've reported, photographed, or recorded that species for your life and year lists.

To access species profiles: Go to the Explore page and type in a bird's common or scientific name under "Explore Species", or use the “Surprise Me!” button to jump to a random species. You can also access Explore Species pages from anywhere in eBird by clicking on the species name in blue.

Explore Species pages are displayed in taxonomic order, so you can use the arrows in the top right to quickly jump to the closest relatives of a species.

The Statistics section displays both your personal statistics and the eBird community's combined stats. To change the region for which the stats and map are generated, use the dropdown menu in the top left of the page.

Photos and Sounds

If you scroll to the bottom of the species profile, you’ll find a gallery of photos and recordings of that species from your chosen region. Use the arrows in the top right to browse top-rated media, click “View all” to jump to all media, or click “My media” to see your personal media for that species.

Currently, non-species taxa are not searchable in Explore Species. You can still view sightings and media of non-species taxa using Species Maps (below) and the Macaulay Library's Search Photos and Sounds.

Species Maps

There are two ways to view maps of individual species reports on eBird:

• from the Species Profile (above) click "Large Map" in the Range Map section
• from the Explore page, click "Species Maps" 

Enter the name of a species and a region of the world (optional). When zoomed out, the map will display a rectangular grid with cell colors based on the number of reports. Zoom in to see the locations of individual observations.

Explore Regions and Hotspots

Explore Region provides one of the most powerful tools in eBird, allowing you to view data summarized across geopolitical regions from local counties to entire countries in a near instant. Just go to the Explore page on eBird.org and type the name of a county, state, province, or country into the search bar under "Explore Regions" to get started!

Explore entire continents and hemispheres: You can also view certain larger regions using the Major Regions dropdown menu below "Explore Regions" (these regions will not appear in the search box). 

Explore US National Wildlife Refuges: You can view sightings from anywhere in the United States National Wildlife Refuge System, which includes over 560 refuges across all 50 states. Unlike other regions in eBird, refuge borders sometimes cross county or state lines.

Explore individual towns and cities: At this time it is not possible to explore eBird data for towns/cities. The smallest geopolitical areas summarized in eBird's Explore tools are counties or districts. You can also explore popular birding patches in your area using eBird Hotspots instead.

Explore Hotspots

There are three ways to explore eBird Hotspots. On the eBird.org website, open the Explore page and click "Explore Hotspots" or search for any county, state, or country using "Explore Regions" then click the Hotspots tab. You can also explore eBird Hotspots on your mobile device using eBird Mobile Explore (below).

Hotspot offer many of the same Explore features, including species lists, illustrated checklists, recent visits, and top eBirders. These sections are described in detail below. 

eBird Mobile Explore

eBird Mobile Explore is an exciting way to discover new places to go birding and find the species you are looking for, all from the free eBird Mobile app on your mobile device. 

eBird Mobile Explore lets you search for recent reports of your favorite species and discover eBird Hotspots in a selected area. eBird Mobile Explore also gives you essential information to plan your birding activity such as when a species was last reported in your area and which Hotspots have been visited recently, plus handy navigation directions so you can find local places with the species you want to see.

To explore species on eBird Mobile, simply tap “Explore” at the bottom of the app. Change your search area by tapping "Edit" in the upper right corner.

Explore features

Explore pages for Hotspots and geopolitical regions offer many summary features, described below. 

Quick links to explore more

Tap the icons at the top to jump to the species list, recent visits, and Top 100 eBirders. 

Use the Region Navigation or Hotspot Navigation menu for more ways to explore data including Bar Charts, Illustrated and Printable checklists, and your personal activity.

eBirding This Month and Year

eBirding This Month / eBirding This Year provides up-to-date eBirding stats including the newest species added to the Species List, and—for all counties, states, provinces, and countries—the top “Community Targets”: species that haven’t yet been reported for this month, but that are most likely to be found based on past years of eBirding in the region. 

Community Targets

Community Targets are part of the eBirding This Month section on all Regional Explore pages. These are species that haven’t been reported yet this month, but have been observed around today’s date in previous years. 

• To be on this list, a species must be reported from multiple years, including at least once in the past two years. 
• Species are sorted by how frequently they appear on eBird checklists from the current week in previous years. 
• Once a species is reported*, it moves to the New Species list and a new Community Target is added.

* If a reported Community Target is also a flagged rarity, it must be reviewed and Accepted by an eBird volunteer before it will be removed from Community Targets and added to New Species.

Regional Content and Resources

eBird Regional Explore Pages highlight the groups that work together to coordinate eBird in a region. You’ll  see regional content and resources whenever you explore pages in areas with active partner networks.

How do I contribute data to regional partner networks? All of your data, including past checklists, are automatically contributed to regional portals where applicable and will be displayed with a regional logo on the eBird website.

Explore Trip Reports

Regional Explore pages display the 10 most recent public eBird Trip Reports that have a majority of their checklists located within that region. To see your Trip Report featured here, make sure to set the visibility of your Trip Report to “Public”. Learn more about eBird Trip Reports. 

Species List

Tap the species total at the top of the page or select 'Bird List' from the navigation menu for a list of all species reported from that region, sorted by when the species was last observed. More recently reported species will appear near the top of the list. 

NOTE: If "Last Observed" is selected, the Bird List will only show the most recent report of that species for that region. If your observation isn't showing up there, it probably means that someone reported that species after you did. Check out the Recent Visits to see your checklist(s) on the Explore Region or Hotspot page.

You can change the default sorting of these displays to Species Name (taxonomic order), Count, or Date. You can also choose to see the first time a species was seen ("First seen"), or the highest count reported for that species ("High count"). Tapping "Show details" will display species comments and media added to that observation.

Printable Checklist

For a pre-formatted, printable list of all species reported to eBird from a region or Hotspot, tap Printable Checklist from the navigation menu.

Illustrated Checklist

The Illustrated Checklist tab of any Explore page combines eBird Bar Charts with the natural history media archived by eBirders in the Macaulay Library to display an enhanced visualization of species occurrence in a region. The highest-rated media asset from the region will be displayed for each species entry on the Illustrated Checklist. You can search for any species on the list, view which species have photos and audio recordings, and which species lack them. Can you help fill in these frequency and media gaps? 

Bar Charts and Graphs

Click Bar Charts on the main Explore page, or check the "Bar Charts" link on any region or Hotspot page, to see when a species is frequently reported from an area. To view bar charts on mobile devices, tap "Region/Hotspot Navigation" (below the summary icons) .

Reading bar charts

The taller the bar, the more likely you will encounter a species during that time of year. No bar (an empty gray box) indicates a species is not reported in that region during that time period. The current date is always marked with a vertical line.

eBird bar charts are based on frequency: the percentage of checklists reporting that species within a specified date range and region. Thus, taller bars indicate a species is reported on a large proportion of checklists from that area and time of year.

You can change the date range or location of the Bar Chart data by clicking the corresponding buttons at the top of the page.

From the Bar Charts tab, click the:

• Species name to visit the species page
• Map icon to see the map of eBird reports for that species
• Chart icon to get detailed histograms and line graphs of frequency and counts throughout the year

eBird's line graphs and histograms (from the chart icon) are particularly useful for comparing reporting rates across multiple species and dates. 

• To add more species to the same chart: click the "Change Species" button 
• To compare data for a single species across a range of years, click "Change Date" and select "Separate years (max. 5 years, 1 species)".

You can also download histogram data directly from these pages. 

Explore Subregions

From larger regions, tap 'Subregions' from the Region Navigation menu to display information for either the states/provinces within a country or territory, or the counties/districts within an individual state or province. 

Other Features

View Global Big Day data: to view Global Big Day and October Big Day summaries for any region, use the 'Custom Time Period' dropdown on the Bird List, Hotspots, or eBirders pages. Since these Big Days cover a single date, the “Date” column will display the checklist start time rather than the calendar day.