Google Street View Birding Hits the Big Time

I've been looking for birds on Google Street View for more than five years. It's been a minor passion of mine, mostly picked at in the few minutes of down time between meetings. A fun diversion, and a personal one.

I had the idea two weeks ago to make it a bit less personal, and open Street View Birding up to office-bound birders everywhere. I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner. A Facebook Group seemed like the right venue, and so I set one up and invited folks via the Birding Memes group to help search for birds with me and post their findings. I figured a few would join, but a whole bunch did.

There are currently more than 700 birders in the Google Street View Birding Facebook Group, and we've collectively found more than ... wait for it ... more than ... this is a big number so sit down for this ... 500 different species by creeping along the roads and trails of this great world and zooming in on tiny pixelated specks in the distance. It's incredible.

I found a few good species in my pokings, but as a groups we've made some real discoveries. Two owls -- Burrowing in Florida and Buffy Fish-Owl in Singapore. We have about FORTY gull species, just about all that can be reasonable expected given GSV's scant coverage in China and the Middle East. Huge birds from Condors to tiny birds like Vermillion Flycatcher. And the beat goes on.

If you read this and would like to join the group, please do. We need all the weirdos we can get.

Javan Pond-Heron, Little Egret, and Asian Openbill, spotted in Thailand by Krit Adirek. Here's the link to Google Maps.

Google Street View Birding

Ah, March.  I'm tired of all the winter birds, and spring birds haven't come yet.  Plus, I'm stuck in the office most of the time and it's cold and it's raining probably.  What's a bored birder to do but dream of birding in faraway lands and in warmer temps? 

I was perusing Google Street View the other day when it dawned on my that it just might be the cure for my March birding blues.  A car travelling all of America's roads taking 360 degree video must have seen a few birds along the way, right?  How many could I find?  My task instantly overwhelming my brain, I cancelled all my other appointments (none), asked my secretary to hold my calls (I don't have a secretary and no one was calling), and set to work.

Turns out, birding on Street View is a lot harder than I thought.  Some of the images were taken more than 5 years ago, and the resolution isn't any good.  Sometimes, the weather was bad.  Mostly, though, there's just so many places to search!  There's a new set of images every 10 feet or so, and scanning the images looking for winged needles in the haystack is quite the endeavor.  I searched for gulls in Maine with no luck; Bald Eagles in Homer, AK but came up empty; couldn't even begin to think of where to look for roadside Red-tails. 

I started to focus by looking for gulls on causeways, figuring gulls were big and easy to ID and often flew right next to bridges.  Along Route 1 in the Florida Keys, I found my first hit: Laughing Gulls (click to enlarge).

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