Research with Wildlife Network

Effort-corrected arrival dates, weekly records and range movement for birds, bats, amphibians and insects, from community acoustic stations and open records. Everything is open: the methods, the API, the data releases and the code. Here is how to use it, check it and build on it with others.

Sign-in uses your ORCID iD and public name only. Needed for study areas and reviews; nothing else on the site needs an account.

Study areasDraw an area, pick a class or species. Get a live dashboard, a weekly digest and an export, and invite collaborators.0 studies Expert reviewMark arrival estimates you know as right, misidentified or resident. Two agreeing reviewers change the published dates.0 reviews by 0 Start in 5 minutesCopy a Python or R snippet, or open the starter notebook with the API and the open data release.Python · R · notebook

Start in five minutes

Arrival dates for any species, with 90% intervals and support, straight from the API:

import pandas as pd

url = "https://wlnw.org/api/v1/arrivals?species=Hirundo%20rustica&format=csv"
arr = pd.read_csv(url, comment="#", parse_dates=["arrivalWeek"])
arr = arr[arr.arrivalSupport >= 0.5]          # drop weak seasons
print(arr.groupby("region").arrivalWeek.min())

arr <- read.csv("https://wlnw.org/api/v1/arrivals?species=Hirundo%20rustica&format=csv",
                comment.char = "#")
arr <- subset(arr, arrivalSupport >= 0.5)
aggregate(as.Date(arrivalWeek) ~ region, arr, min)

The starter notebook (Jupyter) goes further: arrival week against latitude, and effort-corrected shares from the open data release. Open it in Google Colab.

Study areas

A study area is a box on the 5 degree grid with a class (birds, bats and so on) and, if you like, a species list. Its page shows which cells are watched, what is most recorded as a share of all records, and every arrival estimate inside it, with reviews. You can invite collaborators by ORCID iD, receive a weekly email when species arrive in the area, and export the GBIF-derived weekly records as CSV. Browse or create a study area.

Expert review of arrival dates

Automatic identification makes mistakes, and an acoustic "arrival" of a resident is often just the start of its song. If you know a species in a region, review its estimates: looks right, misidentification, resident, not an arrival or unsure. When at least two reviewers reject an estimate and they outnumber those who accept it, it is dropped at the next daily recompute (methods). Reviews are public and credited with your name and ORCID iD. Review from any study area, or from a species page ("Review these arrival dates").

Open questions this data can help answer

Do microphones detect some species earlier in spring than human observers do, and which traits predict the lag?
How does arrival week change with latitude for short-distance compared with long-distance migrants?
Is the temperature at first detection stable across a species' range, or does it shift from south to north?
Can ultrasonic stations reveal the autumn movements of migratory bats such as Nathusius' pipistrelle?
Where would one new station add the most information, given the current coverage gaps?

Who uses the data

No published uses yet: yours could be the first. Tell us when you use the data and it will be listed here.

Cite the data as DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23193453 (0 recorded citations so far, from DataCite), plus the GBIF datasets it lists.

Propose a study

A question that needs a new region, a different grid, a species group we do not cover yet, or a joint analysis? Tell us.