A birding legacy

this was interesting news!

90 years of birdwatching notes online

It's an article from CNN. 

(snip) (CNN) -- More than 100 years ago, J.A. Loring had his eyes on the California sky and his hand on a pen.

 "Citizen scientists" jot notes about birds, like this broad-tailed hummingbird, to add to a national database.  His hand-scribbled notes, along with those of 3,000 other "citizen scientists," can be found lining the drawers of green filing cabinets in the basement of a U.S. Geological Survey building in Reston, Virginia.

These note cards -- 6 million of them, spanning almost a century -- contain a trove of invaluable information that could help unravel the effects of climate change on bird behavior.

"This is the longest and most comprehensive legacy data set on bird migration that we know to exist," said Jessica Zelt, who coordinates the North American Bird Phenology Program at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center.

The cards include personal observations made by the birders. Their personal information, along with recorded bird data about the abundance, arrival, departure and location of certain species, is all found in these historic records. (snip)