Mass Audubon's Bird Atlas Gateway

	Report an Owl

Breeding Bird Atlas projects enlist the skills and enthusiasm of hundreds of volunteers to record changes in breeding bird populations for the purpose of conserving our native birdlife. In 1974 Mass Audubon organized Breeding Bird Atlas 1, the first attempt in North America to systematically map the status of breeding birds on a statewide scale. We invite you to view the results of this pioneering effort – including distribution maps and full species accounts with color illustrations of all of the birds that nested in Massachusetts at that time.

Since this first effort, Breeding Bird Atlas projects have been completed in every state east of the Mississippi, in many western states and Canadian provinces, and in other countries around the world. To be effective conservation tools, atlases need to be repeated after appropriate intervals in order to discover how bird populations may have changed. More than 25 years have now passed since the data for Atlas 1 were collected and it is now time to tackle Atlas 2.

In April 2007, we start fieldwork for Atlas 2 and we need your help for this ambitious undertaking. Breeding Bird Atlas fieldwork is completed by volunteers – people who have a passion for birds and birding, people who want to sharpen their skills and enrich their lives by learning about natural history – people like you! With your help, the results of Atlas 2 will become the scientific basis for bird conservation in the Commonwealth, now and for the future.

In launching this important project we join with several neighboring states and provinces that are also working on their second Breeding Bird Atlases. When Atlas 2 is completed, our data will be part of a large–scale contiguous data set of second Atlas efforts connecting Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland and D.C., Ohio, and Ontario. With our neighbors we will create a massive database, revealing changes in the distribution breeding birds. That information will be used to help set local, statewide, and regional conservation priorities.