Digital Image Guidelines for eBird

The Macaulay Library and eBird allow you to upload photos (and audio) directly to your eBird checklists, thereby archiving them in the Macaulay Library. When you upload these images to support your records, it not only provides our regional reviewers with excellent information to evaluate your observations of rare and unusual species, it also gives other birders an illustrated checklist of the birds you observed, making for a more enjoyable and informative experience when browsing eBird.

So to summarize: almost any identifiable photo is fair game to upload, whether it's a documentation shot of a first state record, a nicely lit picture of a common yard bird, or a rare photo of a hard-to-see species.

When rating, please consider the photo guidelines.

Photo guidelines summary

• Upload photos for both rare and common species

• Crop and edit your images before uploading, but try not to over-crop or over-edit

• Upload your full-resolution images, as long as they are JPG and under 20 MB each

• Refrain from adding a watermark or other text to your images

• Add comments and metadata and rate your photo after you upload it

• Please don't upload composite images or back-of-camera photos

• Upload multiple photos (up to 20 per species), but only if they are sufficiently different

• Photos must be your own and adhere to the media licensing agreement