2025 Release - North American Breeding Bird Survey Dataset (1966 - 2024)

This is an outdated version of the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) dataset that has been superseded by a more recent release. Unless you have a specific need for these archived data, please return to the main page and download the latest data release, which includes all BBS data available to date.

The 1966–2024 BBS dataset contains avian point-count data for more than 700 North American bird taxa (species, subspecies/races, and unidentified species groups). Data are collected annually during the breeding season—primarily in June—along thousands of randomly established roadside survey routes in the United States and Canada. Each route is approximately 24.5 miles (39.2 km) long with counting locations spaced at roughly half-mile (800-m) intervals, for a total of 50 stops. At every stop, a volunteer highly skilled in avian identification conducts a 3-minute point count, recording all birds seen within a quarter-mile (400-m) radius and all birds heard. Surveys begin 30 minutes before local sunrise and take about 5 hours to complete. Routes are surveyed once per year. The number of sampled routes has grown from just over 500 in 1966 to roughly 3,000 annually in recent decades. No data are provided for 2020 because BBS field activities were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and observers were instructed not to conduct surveys. In addition to count data, the dataset includes survey date; start and end times; start and end weather conditions; observer ID; route identification and location information (country, state, and BCR); geographic coordinates of route start points; and an indicator of run-level data quality.