Introducing the new _Birds of Singapore_

The Birds of Singapore has a new home. It's easier to use, smoother, and faster, with brand-new features powered by eBird data and fully updated content. We hope you enjoy using the site as much as we enjoyed making it!What's new"Find Birds"Find Birds is a new page built around your own list of target birds – whether that's a wishlist you've built up, or the species still missing from an imported life list.Targets seen recently – list is a list of eBird sightings of your target species over the last 1, 3, 7, or 14 days.Targets seen recently – map shows the recent sightings on a map, with pins coloured by how many of your target species have been seen at each spot, and filters by rarity, local status, or your lists.When to look for your targets shows a bar chart for every target species, so you can see at a glance when they're easiest to find.eBird mapsEvery species page now pulls in eBird's own distribution data to show where each species is most often detected, together with recent eBird records in the last 14 days. A statistical model uses eBird observations together with habitat and geospatial data to model the detection rate across the island, accounting for effort, seasonal patterns, and long-term trends. The full methodology will be published eventually.Map for Chestnut-bellied Malkoha. New bar chartsYou'll also notice a redesigned bar chart on every species page, no longer just the migrants. These show the likelihood of detecting the species at a good location for it through each week of the year. Some resident species, like the cuckoos, can show particularly strong peaks that coincide with when they're most vocal, even if they're present throughout the year.Here's the bar chart for Asian Brown Flycatcher, a typical migrant.For species covered in the Singapore Bird Database, like Indian Paradise Flycatcher, the bar chart shows the number of individuals recorded during each of these weeks, since July 2016.The bar charts are also shown on the checklist page, where the seasonality of every species can be seen at a glance. Comparing species with different ecology may not always be possible – for example, Chestnut-bellied Malkoha ends up with a smaller than expected detection peak of just 1.2%, which is half the peak for Violet Cuckoo. It is probably because the malkoha is rarely heard, so the detection rate is lower. Comparing the trend within a single species or between similar species can be useful to pick up some patterns, like the different peak timings of these three Ficedula species below.Refreshed species writeupsSome of our species pages were written over 10 years ago. These texts can become surprisingly outdated as we learn more about Singapore's birds, so they were due for a refresh. We've fully revised over 260 species writeups so far, with the rest to follow in the coming months.New family pagesWe're rolling out new family pages – overviews of each of the bird families found in Singapore. 13 are live so far, with 42 more on the way. Here's the family page for the cuckoos.The Singapore Bird DatabaseThe Singapore Bird Database, home of the Records Committee's rare bird assessments, has moved from records.singaporebirds.com to singaporebirds.com/database. This has allowed us to bring more attention to the database and the many birders who contribute to this shared resource. The record submission form has also been rebuilt around eBird, so submissions will be nearly effortless if you submit a checklist on eBird. If you also upload your images to eBird before submitting on our web app, you won't need to upload them a second time.Return of the monthly roundupsWe're launching a new Month in Review based on submissions to the Singapore Bird Database and sightings on eBird, with rare records, new high counts, early and late migrants, and the month's top hotspots. You can catch up on June's Month in Review now.The mailing list is backYou can once again subscribe to get monthly newsletters by email.More ways to use the checklistOur Singapore Bird Checklist can now be viewed in a variety of ways, from a full-screen gallery to a seasonality-focused view and a view focused on the bird families of Singapore. You can even filter the checklist by month to see which birds are likely in each month of the year.Offline accessThe Birds of Singapore is now a web app. The checklist, species pages, and family pages can be made available offline – create an account, go to Preferences, then find Offline access.New Bird Society of Singapore websiteThe new Bird Society of Singapore website is also now live.Other new featuresDark mode, a new page compiling national first records, a page summarising our work with eBird, and a page for records currently under review in the Singapore Bird Database, are just some of the other new additions to the web app.ThanksOur project to rewrite the species accounts began over three years ago and the first new writeups are appearing today. We thank the over 20 volunteers who put in the...