Field Work for the Atlas Project is Complete!
Thank You!

In the early 1980s, New York was one of the first states to undertake a Breeding Bird Atlas project, mapping the distribution of the more than 250 species of birds that breed in the state. Twenty years later, New York began work on a new Atlas to determine how breeding distributions have changed over the past twenty years.

Between 2000 and 2005, over 1,200 people participated in the atlas project. We attained our goal of 100% coverage of more than 5,300 survey blocks in the state. Volunteers visited each of the habitats represented in their assigned blocks and recorded the behavior of the birds that they saw there, reporting each species as a Possible, Probable, or Confirmed breeder.

The database with over 500,000 records was finalized in August 2005 and work on the publication has been underway since January 2005. Species accounts are complete and will include a discussion of changes between the two atlas periods. More than 15 artists are illustrating the book. Co-editors Kevin McGowan and Kimberley Corwin are working with Cornell University Press and the final publication will be available in 2008.

See the DEC website for data, distribution maps, and more details on this project.

The New York State Ornithological Association worked with the following organizations on this project:

	New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
	Audubon New York
	Cornell's Department of Natural Resources
	The NY Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at Cornell University
	The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology

, Chair, Atlas 2000 Steering Committee

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Handy Atlas Links

The NYSDEC Atlas 2000 website
Atlas 2000 Block Maps

All contents copyright © 1998, 2001-2008 New York State Ornithological Association. All rights reserved.
All photos copyright © by the respective photographers and may not be used without written permission.