The Washington Post has utilized data from eBird to visually represent the changes in the populations of individual bird species in the United States. Over the past 50 years, the US bird population has decreased by almost 30 percent. In the article titled Bird Populations are Declining, the Post has used eBird data to create a series of bird population maps for various species of American birds.
The Post article features an interactive table that allows readers to explore the abundance of 26 different bird species in any US city. This table calculates the “number of individuals (of each species) you could expect to see if you went birding for one hour over two kilometers” using bird sightings reported to eBird. Additionally, the table displays the percentage change of each bird species over the last decade (2012-2022).
Concluding the article is an interactive map of the United States, enabling readers to visualize the population change of hundreds of different bird species. By selecting a species of bird, the map reveals the abundance of that species across the country and the percentage change in population (2012-2022). The size and color of the data points on the map represent the species’ abundance and percentage change, respectively.