Mic's Picks - January 2023
Monthly eBird Pro Tip
From Cornell: Are bird populations increasing or decreasing in your area? Zoom in to new, interactive eBird Trends maps to find out. Built from eBird data, these maps provide a detailed snapshot of population health for 586 bird species around the world. Learn more about new eBird Trends maps here.
Annual National Park Passes—Some are Free!
A new year approaches and national parks await! Many of us will visit The Great Smokey Mountains and other wonders of nature. You can pay at the gate or you can pre-purchase America the Beautiful National Parks & Federal Recreational Lands Passes.
The annual America the Beautiful pass is available to anyone for $80.
The America the Beautiful Senior annual pass is $20. An America the Beautiful Senior lifetime pass is $80. If you purchased annual passes in the past and still have them, you can credit them against the lifetime pass.
Do you have a permanent disability? You can obtain an Access Pass on store.usgs.gov/access-pass by uploading an ID and documentation of permanent disability and paying the processing fee of $10.
The Interagency Military-Lifetime Pass, $10, can be issued to Gold Star families and U.S. military veterans. The Military-Annual Pass can be issued to current U.S. military and dependents.
The best pass is free! Every Kid Outdoors Annual 4th Grade Pass is free for all 4th Graders (including home-schooled and free-choice learners 10 years of age). Valid for the duration of the 4th grade school year through the following summer (September - August), Admits the pass owner and any accompanying passengers in a private non-commercial vehicle at a per vehicle fee area, or the pass owner and up to 3 adults at sites that charge per person.
For more information and to order your passes online here: https://store.usgs.gov/recreational-passes
Share a Single e-Bird Checklist
Rather than keeping one checklist per person, keep one list for the entire group and share it with group members afterwards. Once shared, each person can edit their personal copy of the list to reflect just the birds they observed. Learn more about sharing eBird checklists.
Remember: don't add checklists from separate groups together! Each checklist should represent the observations of one or more people who were close enough to have potentially observed all the same individual birds at the same time. Read more here.
