About Birdstack
What is Birdstack?
Birdstack is free, web-based birding software for creating lists of birds seen anywhere in the world. This means that:
- You can access and update your lists from almost any computer connected to the internet anywhere in the world. You aren't tied to a large book or to a desktop application.
- You can publish your data to your own website or blog with just a few clicks. Once this is done, your site will always display your most recent observations. The days of updating HTML tables by hand are over!
- Your lists are kept up-to-date with splits, lumps, and other taxonomic and nomenclatural revisions. No more writing in the margins. No more tricky software upgrades.
- You can contribute to international conservation efforts and research projects by submitting your Western Hemisphere bird sightings to eBird. (More...)
- Or, if you prefer, you can keep all of your data private.
- You can communicate, celebrate, collaborate, commiserate, and compete with other birders from around the world. (We like to call it communitizing.) Clubs! Comments! Contacts! Welcome to Birding 2.0.
If you want to see Birdstack in action, step right this way to take a tour.
Is Birdstack really free?
Yes it is. You can sign up and use Birdstack as much as you like without ever giving us a cent (or a baht or a vatu). But websites are expensive to operate, and if you can make a donation, your support will contribute to Birdstack's upkeep and continued development.
Right. So, whose idea was this, anyway?
Birdstack is the brainchild of David Ringer and Curtis Hawthorne, who own Kapikpik, LLC. We are young birders who needed a way to keep track of our own growing world lists. But ultimately, Birdstack isn't just about ticks and numbers. We believe that the Internet is a powerful medium to bring people together, to disseminate information, and yes, even to change the world. That's why we're excited about Birdstack.
Birdstack would not exist without the publication of the International Ornithological Congress's Birds of the World: Recommended English Names. We applaud the decision of the project committee, led by Dr. Frank Gill and Minturn Wright, to make the list freely available online: WorldBirdNames.org. By promoting free distribution of knowledge and allowing innovation to flourish, they are giving a hugely important gift both to birders and to the birds that we love.
