Skip to main content

Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas II

WBBA logo

The Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas II (WBBA II) is a comprehensive field survey that documents the distribution and abundance of birds breeding in an area. The atlas provides a baseline dataset from which we can measure future changes in bird populations as we help identify the conservation needs of breeding birds.

A huge thanks to our volunteers

See the final season summary

A huge thanks to over 2,000 volunteers who scoured Wisconsin to document which bird species nest in Wisconsin, where nesting occurs and their numbers. We now know Wisconsin has 243 species of birds nesting here, including 13 species not found nesting during the first atlas from 1995-2000. This information will inform bird conservation efforts for the next generation and is critically important as national studies show a loss of 3 billion breeding birds in the U.S. and Canada over the last 50 years.

Explore preliminary species maps and get project updates

New tools allowed volunteers to enter their data online immediately, resulting in real-time maps.

View preliminary species maps
Sign up for more results and updates

Next steps

The Atlas is coordinated jointly by the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology, the DNR, the Western Great Lakes Bird and Bat Observatory and the Wisconsin Bird Conservation Initiative. Organizers are now reviewing the data collected and are preparing and formatting it for release in a book available after 2020. Atlas results also will be published online in a user-friendly format that will complement the book.