You can only enter your information through the MD-DC BBA3 portal in your eBird account. You saw it, you enter it, you own it. If you don’t have an account,  open an eBird account now. (The MD-DC BBA3 does not have a means to enter incidental sightings without an eBird account.) Otherwise, if you make an observation, you can always send an email to Sue Muller who will try to get someone who has an eBird account to come out to see it and enter it into eBird.

Generally during the 5-year atlas, use the BBA3 portal instead of the eBird portal. If after you have completed your outing and checklist you find you have no breeding activity, you can always switch your checklist. (See next FAQ).

There are two ways to change the portal. 1) after the checklist has been submitted, or 2) before the checklist has even been started by signing into https://ebird.org/atlasmddc/submit. If you start the checklist in the regular portal, you have to change the portal  after you complete the checklist.  After you submit the checklist, you can change it on the ebird website pretty easily. Go to the checklist you want to change, reached easily through Manage My Checklists on your My eBird page. On the top right of the page will be a blue ‘edit’ icon ‘button’ with a small down arrow. When you click that a drop down will appear with options to change location, species, etc. a little further down you will see ‘change portal.’ Click that and scroll till you see Maryland-DC Breeding Bird Atlas. Click Change Portal and it’s done.

Each checklist is independent of every other checklist, so each bird can safely be counted as often as an  observer wishes. Be as precise as you can for location, i.e., use personal locations (rather than hotspots) or drop a pin on the map. The goal of this Atlas is not to simply confirm each species in each block. This atlas (unlike the two earlier) will have access to finer spatial resolution than a 3 x 3 mile block and will have access to finer temporal resolution than one record per year or per Atlas period — records for species throughout the entire season are available, as often as they are reported.

No.  An atlaser’s goal isn’t necessarily to confirm as many species as possible but instead to get “Probable” or” Confirmed” codes for as many species as possible. This may sound like the same thing, but Probable codes require far less time to get than Confirmed codes; atlasers who shift their focus from Confirming species to getting Probable codes will be more efficient and able to cover more ground.

Absolutely! Download Instructions for the Safe Observation of Nests.

Sue Muller and Dave Ziolkowski are the Howard County Coordinators. Gabriel Foley is the MD-DC BBA3 coordinator. Biographies of all of the county coordinators are on the MD-DC BBA3 website.

At the bottom of the MD-DC BBA3 home page. It shows species confirmed and effort hours. Your personal totals are on your personal page.

View or download a copy. Both a full version and a field version are available.

Download a Howard County Parking Placard pdf file to print.

Howard County Bird Club has printed up a supply that you can pick up an any HCBC meeting or at any of the Howard County atlas events.

Breeding codes indicate how likely it is that the activity represents actual breeding at that location. There is an excellent explanation in the field handbook on pages 3-6.  Be sure you understand how breeding codes are to be used.

“Possible” breeding codes can be used. When using “Probable” breeding codes, be sure that your observation is at a time when the activity is likely in your area since breeding activity may take place outside the safe date window. Howard County safe dates are on this website.

Search for results to date in BBA3 and look at tables showing results from the three Howard County atlases.

Search for results to date in BBA3 and look at maps showing results from the three Howard County atlases.

These topographic maps can be downloaded as pdf files.

Follow the directions in the pdf file for installing KMZ files.