How can I share my bird photos with the Lab?

We’re constantly thankful that people share so many wonderful images with us. If you’ve taken some photos and want other bird enthusiasts to see them, there are several ways to share them with us:

• If you use eBird, you can add photos and sound to your checklists to verify notable birds or just to show off a picture or bird you’re particularly proud of. This media is then viewable by other eBird users through our eBird/Macaulay Library media search function. By uploading photos users agree to make them available to the Cornell Lab for use in various projects like developing our All About Birds species guide and our MerlinVision photo ID project. New to eBird? We have a free course that will show you everything you need to know.
• The Cornell Lab Facebook page: Join us on Facebook and post photos to the Cornell Lab’s Facebook page. Your photo will appear in Public Posts, which you can find by clicking on “More” and then “Community” in the menu of our page. Here, people can comment and help with ID questions. Each week we draw photos from this pool to highlight in Community Photos collections.
• Project-related contests and challenges: Project FeederWatch often runs their BirdSpotter photo contest during the winter, with the help of sponsor Bob’s Red Mill Natural Foods. Also check in with Celebrate Urban Birds, which runs a variety of photo challenges through the year. Both often feature prizes!
• Birdshare: This is a Flickr group where you can share photos if you have a Flickr account.

What if you’ve got a question about a photo but you don’t really want to share it? You can always send pictures for ID and other questions to cornellbirds@cornell.edu. We’ll do our best to answer—and we won’t share them without your permission.