Google Earth Maps

Google Earth Maps: View Google Earth (KML) files showing spatial distribution of bird records within NADC. Available region-wide, at the state level, project level, or species level, these files can be opened in Google Earth and are a convenient way to explore AKN data.

Species	Project	Region
View maps for a particular taxon	View maps for NADC projects	View maps by state or for the NADC region

How to open these files

First, be sure you have downloaded Google Earth, however, it is not necessary to use Google Earth Pro to view the files. Click on the file of interest and download it to your local hard drive and open it in Google Earth. The files are zipped for efficiency; most browsers should open them automatically, but if yours does not you may need to download compression software: 7-Zip (free) and WinZip are popular packages. Double-clicking the file should open it automatically. If not, open Google Earth, and then use file>open to navigate to the file on your desktop. For help using Google Earth, click here.

How to interpret these files

The species files show a data summary for the Northeast (Virginia to Maine) only.

The grid: The initial view shows the Northeast as a whole, and indicates data density in a colored 1 x 1 degree grid. (Note that since longitude converges on the poles, grids in northern areas are slightly smaller than those in southern areas.) As you zoom in the grid changes to a 0.5 x 0.5 degree grid before ultimately revealing the individual points. The grid is necessary since the large number of AKN locations in the Northeast would be too much for Google Earth to handle if the data were not summarized in the wide scale views. The color coding is as follows:

• Red = 400 or more locations
• Yellow = 150-399 locations
• Green = 50-149 locations
• Blue = 1-49 locations
• Violet = 0 locations

Note that the 1 x 1 degree grid displays the average for the four 0.5 x 0.5 degree cells below it. As you zoom in to the 0.5 x 0.5 degree grid, those cells give an actual representation of how much data are present underneath.

The points: At the widest zoom level the points may be densely packed together, but you will be seeing all the AKN points visible for the region. (Note: for the Boston area this could be thousands of points.) You may wish to zoom in to better view where the points are situated and to see the distinction between points more easily.

For the regional and species data, the points are color-coded to indicate the different datasets. The color coding is as follows:

• Red = eBird (this includes eBird, Mass Audubon eBird, NY eBird, VA eBird, and PA eBird)
• Orange = ISS eBird
  
• Pink = Breeding Bird Survey (BBS)
• Yellow = Project Feederwatch (PFW)
• Blue = Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC)
• Green = Data with limited regional scope, including Mountain BirdWatch (MBW) and Maryland Marshbird (MDMB)
• Brown = Multiple, distinct datasets (e.g., ebird and ISS eBird)

The datasets and species files have just a single color.

Pop-up windows: It is possible to get more information about the observations at a given point by left-clicking on the point. This will create a pop-up window, that gives the following information, pulled directly from the AKN Database:

Location Name: From "Locality" field in AKN; note that some datasets do not populate this field, in which case the window will read "No Locality Name"

Projects: From "ProjectCode" in AKN; the project or projects that have contributed data to this exact point. Note that many datasets will not have overlapping points, but that some joint projects (e.g., eBird, MassAudubon eBird, and ISS eBird) may have multiple projects entering data at the same point.

Number of records: Displays the total number of records from all projects for the site.

Species list: This list in taxonomic order shows all taxa recorded from the site, with the Common Name, Scientific Name (as reported to the AKN), and number of record shown for each. Common name and taxonomic order follow the eBird taxonomy, which conforms with the AOU. Read more about our taxonomic standards here.

Click for more instructions on how to use Google Earth to view the NADC files.