One of the first things I took on when I started at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology was creating the auk R package for accessing eBird data. The entire eBird dataset can be downloaded as a massive text file, called the eBird Basic Dataset (EBD), and auk pulls out manageable chunks of the dataset based on various spatial, temporal, or taxonomic filters.

Thanks to the first post of theseries we knowwhere to observe birds near Radolfzell’s Max Planck Institute forOrnithology, so we could go and do that! Or we can stay behind ourlaptops and take advantage of eBird, afantastic bird sightings aggregator!