Wildlife Diversity Program Quarterly Report for January–March 2025
Final Breeding Season for the NC Bird Atlas Begins
by Scott Anderson, Science Support Coordinator
T he North Carolina Bird Atlas is a 5-year, volunteer-driven project to map the distribution of breeding and wintering birds across the state. We began work on the Atlas in January 2021 and are hitting the ground running while entering our 5th breeding season with the goal of surveying 937 evenly spaced priority blocks across the state. In addition to volunteers, we deploy staff to survey in hard- to-reach areas. In January and February 2025, staff visited 305 priority blocks, making over 17,800 observations of wintering birds. In early April, as migration waned and resident birds began breeding, staff drove roads and floated streams searching for evidence of breeding species. To date, staff and over 3,000 volunteers have confirmed breeding of 215 species, collecting over 2.5 million observations from 916 priority blocks. By February 2026, we plan to have adequately surveyed over 1/6 of the entire state since 2021, resulting in the best dataset of breeding and wintering birds ever compiled for North Carolina. Anyone can participate by collect- ing data through the eBird app. More details are available on our website at: ncbirdatlas.org .
NCWRC
NCWRC
Top: Floating the Roanoke River at sunrise in search of breeding birds. Bottom: Belted Kingfisher ( Megaceryle alcyon ) nest burrowed into the side of a riverbank in coastal North Carolina.
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