More than 1,400 volunteers have already signed up to participate in the most extensive nesting bird survey ever attempted in the state, the 2nd Pennsylvania Breeding Bird Atlas - a five-year project being directed and coordinated jointly by the Pennsylvania Game Commission and Carnegie Museum of Natural History. But, more help is needed.

The coordinators are looking for volunteers to help record information about the myriad species that nest in the Commonwealth's forests, fields and wetlands.

The second Atlas started last spring and will continue through summer 2008. Participants sign up to search for or report on nesting birds in specific 10-square mile geographic grids of Pennsylvania's nearly 45,000 square miles. Every individual who decides to help with the survey can choose his or her level of involvement. Whether a birder provides one or 100 entries, every record adds measurably to the Atlas' ambitious goals.

Since second Atlas survey work started one year ago, more than 70,000 bird sightings - representing an amazing 189 species - have been logged on the Atlas website and more than 165 species have already been confirmed nesting in the state. In the first Atlas, 210 species were observed and 180 were confirmed to be nesting at the end of the six-year project.

Two new species already documented in new Atlas surveys that weren't recorded in the 1980s effort are the Sandhill crane and the Eurasian collared dove. Atlas workers also have reported some 30 'species of special concern' including least bittern, sedge wren, black tern, Swainson's thrush, dickcissel, yellow-bellied flycatcher, bald eagle, peregrine falcon, osprey and black-crowned night heron.

Other rare and unusual species observed in the second survey's first year included the clay-colored sparrow, chuck-will's-widow, ruddy duck, ring-necked duck and bufflehead.

Atlas survey coordinators stress that volunteers can provide any level of assistance and that they can contribute in any or all of the survey's planned five years. Every single breeding bird observation, whether a common species, such as a robin, mourning dove or house sparrow seen by beginning "backyard" birdwatchers or a real rarity, such as a sandpiper or loggerhead shrike, documented by an expert and avid birder, will improve the Atlas and measurably add to our knowledge of the occurrence, status and distribution of Pennsylvania's birdlife.

Additional funding for the Atlas has been provided by the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources' Wild Resource Conservation Fund. In-kind and other assistance is being provided by: DCNR's bureaus of Forestry and State Parks; Pennsylvania Audubon, Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology; Penn State Cooperative Wetlands Center; Penn State Institutes of the Environment; Penn State School of Forest Resources; Powdermill Nature Reserve; National Parks Service; and Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.

6/3/2005