Research
Open Datasets
Structured, downloadable, CC BY 4.0. Take them, check them, build on them. We would rather be corrected than cited uncritically.
Feeder Bird Trait Matrix
All 78 profiled species with normalized mass, length, wingspan, residency, food acceptance and feeder compatibility. The substrate for every analysis in findings.
LiveThe Feeder Log
Reader-submitted field observations: species that fed, at which feeder type, on which food, in which region and month. Grows continuously and exports live.
Licence and citation#
Both datasets are released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Use them commercially, modify them, redistribute them. The only condition is attribution.
Cite as: ProBirdFeeder Feeder Bird Trait Matrix, probirdfeeder.com/research/datasets/feeder-bird-traits/, accessed [date]. For the observation network: ProBirdFeeder Feeder Log, probirdfeeder.com/research/feeder-log/, accessed [date], noting the row count at the time you pulled it, because it changes.
Why we publish the build script too#
A dataset you cannot regenerate is a dataset you have to trust. Ours ships with
research/build_dataset.py, which reads the published species profiles and emits the CSV
deterministically. Run it against this site and you get byte-identical output, or you find a bug,
which is equally useful to us. The extraction rules it implements are documented in plain English on
the methods page.
Formats#
| File | Format | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| feeder-bird-traits.csv | CSV | One row per species, list columns pipe-delimited |
| feeder-bird-traits.json | JSON | Same data with lists as arrays, plus the source text each tag came from |
| matrix-food.json | JSON | Species slug to food tags, for joins |
| matrix-feeder.json | JSON | Species slug to feeder-type tags, for joins |
| summary.json | JSON | Precomputed aggregates used by the findings pages |
| feeder-log.csv | CSV | Live export of the observation network |
| api/feeder-log/summary.json | JSON | Live aggregate counts, CORS enabled |