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Historically, the first biological atlas was prepared from information collected on plants and became the Atlas of the British Flora (Perring and Walters 1962). Shortly thereafter, the first Breeding Bird Atlas (BBA) \u2013 an attempt to establish the breeding status of all bird species found in a defined area during a particular time \u2013 was completed in Great Britain and Ireland between 1968 and 1971 (Sharrock 1976). The atlas concept transferred to North America, and atlasing at a state level began in Massachusetts in 1974 (Veit and Petersen 1993). By 1990, in North America, Breeding Bird Atlases were being developed in 36 states and 8 Canadian provinces (Smith 1990).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Over nearly 100 years, Florida has had the good fortune to have several books written that cover the birds of the state. Bailey (1925), Howell (1932), Sprunt (1954), <\/span>Robertson and Woolfenden (1992), Stevenson and Anderson (1994), and Greenlaw et al. (2014) <\/span>summarized the accumulated knowledge about Florida\u2019s birds including descriptions, and some maps, of each bird\u2019s distribution. These authors used information from a variety of sources such as correspondence with colleagues and scientific publications to characterize where individual bird species occurred in the state. Stevenson and Anderson (1994) improved the distribution maps with unique symbols for each season for records of bird species in Florida. They also used data gathered by thousands of volunteers from the continental-scale Audubon Christmas Bird Count to characterize winter abundance.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The membership of the Florida Ornithological Society (FOS), established in 1972 to promote field ornithology in Florida and to facilitate contact between professional and amateur ornithologists and birders in the state, has been interested in all aspects of birds since its founding. Of particular interest has been the status of Florida\u2019s breeding birds \u2013 where they are found geographically in <\/span>\u200b<\/span>\u200b<\/span><\/span>Florida, and how their populations have changed over time. Harnessing volunteers in a \u201ccitizen science\u201d project to collect data on breeding birds was a logical next step. To find out, members of FOS decided to go into the field to collect information on every breeding bird species in Florida and to gather the information into an atlas. The membership of FOS and many collaborators took on the challenge to prepare the first Florida Breeding Bird Atlas (BBA I) (Kale et al. 1992).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n