Frequently Asked Questions

Absolutely! We welcome and encourage beginner birders to join Project Phoenix. We love that you want to pick up a new hobby, and we are here to help! Check out our resources on species identification, including a list of just 20 species to focus on learning. Our team is available M – F, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. PST to help with species identification – just send us an email, and someone from our team will be in touch to assist you.

Yes, of course! Birding is a great activity for all ages. Those under the age of 18 are unable to fill out our volunteer sign-up form. However, they are still able to conduct surveys and submit their observations to eBird, and they may sign up for our e-newsletter to receive news and volunteer updates.

Parents/guardians and educators are welcome to sign up as volunteers and include children in their weekly surveys. When submitting your checklists, just update the number of observers to reflect the size of your group.

Yes! We support the Birdability movement, and we welcome everyone with an interest in birds to participate.

Absolutely! We accept volunteers on a rolling basis. You are welcome to join Project Phoenix at any time.

Project Phoenix collects data from July 1st – November 30th. You’re welcome to start surveys anytime. Just don’t forget to sign up first!

We are collecting data via eBird, an online community science platform managed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. eBird stores bird observations in checklists. Our volunteers will create one eBird checklist for each 10-minute survey that includes all the birds they observed.

Checklists can be submitted using a web browser or a mobile app. We strongly recommend using the mobile app.

Yes! To understand how smoke affects birds, we need to collect data on bird observations in a wide range of air quality conditions. If your site does not experience smoke this year, your observations provide a snapshot of bird activity when air quality is good. This is incredibly valuable baseline data!

Absolutely – our superstar team of nearly 450 volunteers (and counting!) will provide critical observations of birds during the fire season and help us answer our research questions. But, there is always room for more people on our team, and our science gets better as our volunteer base grows.

Great question! Although it feels short, 10 minutes provides an excellent snapshot of bird activity at a specific place and time. Alone, a single survey does not tell us much, but together, our observations will provide a powerful tool to learn more about how bird activity is influenced by daily changes in air quality.

Our survey protocol has already been tested in the field – our program director, Dr. Olivia Sanderfoot, led a study as part of her Ph.D. that leveraged 10-minute surveys to learn more about how birds were affected by changes in human activity during COVID-19 lockdowns! Read more in Scientific Reports.

Project Phoenix is based in Southern California, a.k.a. “SoCal”.

There’s nothing that you need to do. This phenomenon is called “imperfect detection” and is something that our models account for when analyzing data.