STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
This weekly briefing aggregates public eBird observations across Montana so decision-makers and field biologists can see what the landscape is saying — early, honestly, and without putting rare animals at risk.
1. Executive brief
2. Statewide pulse
Figure A
Daily observation volume
Figure B
Top reported species this week
3. Population trends — eBird Status & Trends
Effort-corrected relative-abundance trends for Montana from the peer-reviewed eBird Status & Trends models, abundance-weighted across the state's 27 km grid. A species is called declining or increasing only when its 80% confidence interval excludes zero — otherwise it reads as stable. Source: Fink et al., eBird Status and Trends 2022 (doi.org/10.2173/ebirdst.2022).
Figure T
Steepest Montana trends (% per year)
| Species | %/yr | 80% CI | Total change | Since | Season |
|---|
4. Where species are changing — Montana map
Each dot is a 27 km cell of Montana. Red = the species is declining there, green = increasing (relative abundance, % per year). eBird Status & Trends 2022.
Interactive · pick a species
Featured this week
5. Spring arrival windows
Typical arrival timing for Montana migrants, from 24 years of daily-presence records (saturation-onset metric). These are descriptive normal windows with an early/late flag for the current year — not an "arriving earlier over time" claim (that needs per-checklist effort data).
| Species | Normal arrival window | Consistency (± days) | This year |
|---|
6. Phenology pulse
Species whose first detection this week is at least 7 days early or late versus their multi-year median first date (non-sensitive species only on the public package).
| Species | Date | Shift | vs median |
|---|
7. Hotspot activity
Highest-activity locations this week. Public package shows place names only — never rare-species coordinates.
Figure C
Most active locations
8. Notable detections
| Species | Week records | Notes |
|---|
9. Community contribution
Guided field observations this week
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10. Next-week forecast (Blackwell)
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Figure F
Expected observations (model p50) vs historical week-of-year
| Species | Detection | Expected reports (p10–p90) | Avg reports this wk (history) | Trend |
|---|
Scores from the Grace Blackwell lab (`montana-bird-ml`). Effort-unadjusted until checklist effort fields are in the feature store.
11. Member / agency briefing
Species of Concern grids, expansion/contraction lists, and corridor pressure require authorized access.
Species of Concern (10 km grid only)
| Species | Flag | Sum | Days | Grid cells |
|---|
Figure D
High-pressure 10 km cells
Expanding vs contracting (YTD vs prior year)
| Trend | Species | This year | Prior | Ratio |
|---|
12. Methods & data pedigree
Interactive charts are rendered with Chart.js from structured JSON — never screenshots of spreadsheets. Sensitive locations are withheld by design.