Bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

 tracking provides a way to assess the habitat range and behavior of birds without ever seeing the bird. Bird tracking falls under the category of tracking

Tracking (hunting)

Tracking in hunting and ecology is the science and art of observing animal tracks and other signs, with the goal of gaining understanding of the landscape and the animal being tracked...

 and is related to Animal tracking

Animal tracks

Animal tracks are the imprints left behind in soil, snow, mud, or other ground surfaces that an animal walk across. Animal tracks are used by hunters in tracking their prey and by naturalists to identify animals living in a given area....

. A guide to bird tracking has been published. Bird tracking is a tool for naturalists

Natural history

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...

 to use in order to assess what birds are present in an ecosystem

Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....

 even if the bird is rarely seen.

Data collection

In the Pacific Northwest

Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...

 of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 a program called NatureMapping collects data by educating the public and having them pool their data in a citizen science

Citizen science

Citizen science is a term used for the systematic collection and analysis of data; development of technology; testing of natural phenomena; and the dissemination of these activities by researchers on a primarily avocational basis...

 application. Data can be collected in the field using a handheld palm pilot and GPS system that streamlines the collection process. This free program is called CyberTracker. In order to make sure that data is reliable, a tracker evaluation

Evaluation

Evaluation is systematic determination of merit, worth, and significance of something or someone using criteria against a set of standards.Evaluation often is used to characterize and appraise subjects of interest in a wide range of human enterprises, including the arts, criminal justice,...

 system has been put in place through the Cybertracker

CyberTracker

CyberTracker Conservation is a South African non-profit company that develops handheld data capture solutions. Their flagship product is called CyberTracker 3 and can be downloaded free from the CyberTracker website....

organization.