How To Use The NADC Site
Common Tern
The Northeast Avian Data Center (NADC) website provides a wealth of information on birds and bird monitoring projects in the Northeast. Below we guide you through the steps that will help you explore the NADC site, depending on whether you are interested in data for a given region, species, or project.
Information by region
If you are seeking data on birds or bird monitoring projects for a specific state within the Northeast, your first stop should be the States tab. Here you can find AKN data served up in a state-specific format, including:
1) Bar charts for your state: These summarize all data for all projects for all years.
2) Google Earth files: these show all AKN datapoints for the Region on a map, and allow you to explore summaries of the data for the point--both the species and the data volume.
3) Data summaries: If you wish simply to get a quick view of what datasets exist in your state and how much data they contain, check the data table on your state's page.
4) Prepackaged data: Prepackaged, zipped files provide all records for a state in a single file.
5) Direct data download: The Download tab provides access to the Download Tool, which you can use to download raw data for your state. Selection options include by dataset, species, or time period.
If instead you are interested in bird data for a specific county within a state, or specific Bird Conservation Region that spans multiple states, then try one of the following:
1) Generate a bar chart for your county of interest or download
2) Generate a bar chart for a BCR
Information by species
1) Begin with the bar charts again. Select your region and period of
interest, along with whatever datasets you want to see. You will have
to scroll through the list (in taxonomic order) to find your species,
but will be rewarded with a summary of the species' occurrence
throughout the year and will easily be able to compare those data with
the data for adjacent species.
2) Then, go the the prepackaged KML files to download a KML file for your species of interest. By clicking on the point in Google Earth, you will be able to see more information about each location that has recorded the species (including the dataset and number of observations).
3) Under the download tab, use the prepackaged data files or the Data Download Tool to download the raw data for that species. If you want to specify certain parameters (e.g., date range or specific projects), those can be specified using the download tool.
Information by project
1) Check out the NADC Data Tables or the States Data Tables (click here to see Maryland) to get an overview of how much data the project contains.
2) View the spatial distribution of the project data by downloading the project KML file. By clicking on the points, you can quickly see how many species are recorded and how many surveys have been conducted.
3) Bar charts can also be useful, since you can get a summary of how much data are available for a given period, how many species have been recorded, and what periods do not have data. Be sure to select the correct project.
4) Download the project data directly using the prepackaged zip files or the Download Tool, if you wish to specify the parameters.
