Seeking Volunteers for Historic Bird Data Entry
In the past, many of you have helped us enter tens of thousands of historic bird records that only existed on paper and filed away in boxes. We named it the Phoenix Project, part of the Vermont Atlas of Life. Together, we’ve digitized thousands of pages of historic spring bird records. And now, we are nearly finished entering over 125 years of bird records, mobilizing them for science and conservation. We need your help to reach the finish line!
Now, we are seeking a few volunteers to help us online to digitize a collection of daily bird records collected by Guy Waterman at the Waterman’s homestead in East Corinth from 1974 to 1998. And, you can do this from the comfort of your own home! If you are interested and enjoy working with data entry online, please contact our data manager (and awesome birder), Megan Massa at and she can get you started.
Guy and Laura Waterman at their kitchen table in Vermont in 1976.
Phoenix Project Background
The Vermont Atlas of Life’s Project Phoenix aims to rescue historic biodiversity records, some a century old, now trapped in notebooks, on scraps of paper, and in old file drawers, or outdated computer files. “Data rescue” involves moving information at risk of being lost into electronic format so it can be used for present and future analyses.
The rebirth of historic bird sightings data depends on a dedicated corps of volunteers who, in their leisure time and from the comfort of home, can easily move bird sightings from paper to computer.
In 2003, we worked closely with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to launch eBird Vermont, an online database that replaced paper records, rendering birders’ observations accessible to all and available for science conservation. It’s been wildly successful thanks to bird watchers like you. We now have more than 8.7 million bird records, 767 thousand complete checklists, shared by nearly 18,000 people.
Before eBird Vermont, there were many dedicated bird watchers recording their observations on paper. Here at the Vermont Atlas of Life at VCE, we have collected over 100 years of historic data that are in old notebooks, cards, and file boxes—a treasure trove of information waiting to take flight again.
For example, beginning in 1965 and for nearly the next 40 years, Nancy Simpson kept a daily bird checklist on her southern Vermont property. We have old notebooks of Dr. Lucretius Ross, whose detailed records of spring arrival for each bird species in Bennington date back to 1902. Helen Carr’s notebook of bird records in Bradford that she kept from 1924 to 1981. T.S. Fillebrown’s bird records in the 1940s and 1950s in Woodstock. And there are many more.
The largest collection spans from 1974 to 2001 when Vermont’s bird records were collected by volunteers through the Records of Vermont Birds<(RVB) project. Birders from across the state dutifully summarized their seasonal bird sightings and submitted them on paper through the mail. These were reviewed and published as a quarterly newsletter and then filed in boxes—archived for the historical record.
For 30 years, RVB was the most complete and authoritative source of bird sightings, including first arrival dates for migrants, ever assembled—on paper. RVB’s publisher, the Vermont Institute of Natural Science, gave us the historic bird records behind RVB. With the incredible help of volunteers, we’ve digitized spring bird records from 5,000 pages and 7,000 notecards!
Since much of those early bird sightings were first collected, the growing season in Vermont has increased by about two weeks. Ice-out on lakes and leaf-out on the lilacs in our front yards come about 12 days sooner. Although the phenology — or the timing of major natural events — varies normally from year to year, on average Vermont springs come earlier. And that could be a concern for bird conservation. As plants and insects emerge earlier in the season, for example, we can analyze whether birds have adequately adjusted the timing of their own migration or breeding cycles to keep pace. A mismatch could cause bird populations to decline.
