NatureCounts strives to abide the FAIR principles of data management, ensuring that data are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. To do this, all data in NatureCounts must be consistently formatted.

All NatureCounts data are formatted using a schema called the Bird Monitoring Data Exchange (BMDE), a standard set of data fields that capture all the variables of a bird observation. Because all datasets adhere to this format, data collected using various protocols can be interoperable and quickly understood.

The BMDE is intended for sharing occurrence records, and doesn’t necessarily capture every aspect of a dataset. For complete data from projects that record more than bird occurrence (ie. bird banding data or nest monitoring data), you may need to consult the metadata and/or contact the data owner.

Understanding the BMDE is crucial for working with data downloaded from NatureCounts. For an introduction to the BMDE, see the tutorial on Getting Started With the BMDE. Further information is available on the BMDE page of the NatureCounts website.

Next Section: Exploring the Metadata