about
log a bird you saw or heard. what kind was it? did you get a picture of it?
it's the honor system: nobody reviews your sightings, ranks you, or keeps score. there are no totals and no leaderboards — this is a place to notice birds, not to compete.
accounts
you sign in with an atmosphere account: one login that works here, on Bluesky, and on every other app built the same way — the way one email address works in any mail app. birds.place has no accounts of its own and never sees your password. signing in grants it permission to save sightings to your account, so your birds are written to something you own, not to us.
that includes the photos, videos and audio, which is why you can take them to another app that reads bird sightings, or stop using birds.place entirely and still have every bird you logged. more of what that makes possible.
no account yet? create an account makes you one and brings you back signed in. it lives on selfhosted.social — free, community-run, nightly backups — which our friend Bailey (@pds.dad) runs. Bluesky and Blacksky will also make you one directly, if you would rather start there; then come back and type your handle: the you.bsky.social part.
wherever you start is a starting point, not a home you are stuck in: your account is yours, and you can move it to another host later without losing a bird. already run your own server? type its address instead of a handle.
naming the bird
type whatever you like: if you pick from the suggestions, the sighting also records a stable code for that species, which is what makes "the same bird, a year later" possible. if you aren't sure, options like hawk sp. or Greater/Lesser Scaup let you express that!
thanks to
- species names and codes from the eBird/Clements taxonomy, maintained by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
- suggestion ordering from GBIF occurrence counts, so the birds people frequently see come first.
- photographs on the home page from Wikimedia Commons, freely licensed — each one links to its source and photographer.
the fine print
- privacy — what we keep, and what we don't.
- terms — the rules for using birds.place.
- support — report something, block someone, or reach a person.
- hello@birds.place