Many of you use eBird. But if you don’t, or don’t get out of it what you might, I challenge you to watch the three-minute video (eBird.org/about) and not be inspired. With the sense that so much is going wrong right now, this is something clearly going right.

Using eBird is easy. If you can record a list of birds, you can use eBird. Unlike so many things on the Internet, there are no ulterior motives. eBird is maintained and continuously updated by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, with many partners, including the National Audubon Society. The goal is simple yet profound: record and archive bird detections from around the world, as many as possible, to get as accurate as possible a picture of where birds are, how many there are, and at what time of year they occur. The conservation and scientific implications are hard to overestimate.

Below the surface are tools that subtly help you become a better birder. When you visit a new area and go to enter your checklist, you are presented with a seasonally appropriate list of species for the region and time of year. These lists are starting points, and should cover all the expected species, as well as expected numbers, for the season. If you find something less expected, you’ll be prompted to provide some details, and you can even upload photos and sounds to document your sighting. eBird is worldwide and is supported by thousands of regional reviewers to maintain the lists of expected species and review unusual records.

To get started, just visit eBird.org. All you need for an account is an email address and a user name (most people use their own name). You can enter lists by signing in on the website, or on a highly usable smartphone app. I am a bit of a Luddite by nature, but the app has won me over. Using GPS, even where you can’t get a cell connection, it will position you in the right spot and give you a checklist to work with in the field, as well as produce a track of your birding route on a satellite map of the area. The search function for use in the field is excellent, and you don’t have to hunt around in a notebook or on a paper list. If you see a Red-tailed Hawk, just entering “rt” in the search bar will bring up the species name. A quick tap will add one, and if you see another, a second tap will record that bird. After using it a few times, it will become second nature.

There just isn’t space to discuss all of the features, but now is the time to get started. Check eBird.org for many guides and tutorials, including eBird Essentials a free on-line course offered by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

eBird is a wonderful resource for permanently archiving your records, comparing what you’ve recorded from year to year, archiving your photos and sound recordings (with helpful articles on how to do this). And I barely have space for the outputs. You can explore species range maps that are based on actual reports, including your own. Get bar charts of local abundance for your county, or the hotspot, state or country you will be visiting. View photos and illustrated checklists of any location you can think of, and sign up for alerts of rare birds or species you “need.”

Last point: check out eBird.org/science and watch a few of the abundance animations, now available for nearly every North American species, showing the timing and abundance of their seasonal movements as they play out over a year’s time. eBird is a labor of love by thousands of people and it keeps getting better. What could be better than that?

- Chris Conard