Feburary 2024 Update: Atlas Book Writing Is Well Underway!
Now that we are done vetting the 2.8 million atlas observations, we are diligently working to prepare the final book product. Draft versions of most of the species-level graphics and statistics are ready, and we have a crack team of 18 authors hard at work preparing approximately 250 species accounts.
A process of this magnitude always takes longer than we'd hope — thanks for your patience — we are hoping this book will see the light of day sometime in 2025!
And a special thank you to everyone who has offered their time and treasure to make this project possible!
Here’s a peek at what the two-page species accounts will look like.
We Did It: All 1,283 Atlas Blocks Complete!
We started this fifth and final data collection season with 500 blocks left to finish. But thanks to your energy, dedication, and grit, all 1,283 priority and specialty Atlas blocks in Wisconsin have been marked complete!
We can all be proud of this phenomenal effort, representing the work of more than 2,000 people and five years of data collection. From the Apostle Islands of Lake Superior, to the bluffs and backwaters along the Mississippi, to the agricultural fields of southern Wisconsin, volunteers from across the state came together to complete the Atlas.
What's Next?
The bulk of active data collection occurred from early 2015 through late summer 2019, but there is still much to be done!
Atlas coordinators will be very focused on data review through 2023. With hundreds of thousands of records, all data will need to be reviewed for breeding codes, dates, locations, and species, and checked in a variety of ways.
After all data is reviewed, results will be published in a book, just like the first Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas. It will take several years to prepare the atlas data, the point count data, generate maps and models, and write species accounts and other chapters. Atlas results data will also be available online. Look forward to a high-quality atlas book to document results, as well as a data-rich, user-friendly online presence.
Conserving Wisconsin Birds
The Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas II is a comprehensive field survey documenting the distribution and abundance of birds breeding across our state. Birds are an essential part of Wisconsin’s culture and ecology. Yet many species face grave threats from habitat loss, climate change, and other human-caused pressures and nearly one-third are imperiled or will be without intervention. To conserve them, we need a current understanding of birds that rely on Wisconsin to breed and raise their young.
