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Avian population sizes fluctuate and change over vast spatial scales, but the mechanistic underpinnings remain poorly understood. A key question is whether spatial and annual variation in avian population dynamics is driven primarily by variation in breeding season recruitment or by variation in overwinter survival. We present a method using large‐scale volunteer‐collected data from project eBird to develop species‐specific indices of net population change as proxies for survival and recruitment, based on twice‐annual, rangewide snapshots of relative abundance in spring and fall. We demonstrate the use of these indices by examining spatially explicit annual variation in survival and recruitment in two well‐surveyed nonmigratory North American species, Carolina wrenThryothorus ludovicianusand northern cardinalCardinalis cardinalis. We show that, while interannual variation in both survival and recruitment is slight for northern cardinal, eBird abundance data reveal strong and geographically coherent signals of interannual variation in the overwinter survival of Carolina wren. As predicted, variation in wintertime survival dominates overall interannual population fluctuations of wrens and is correlated with winter temperature and snowfall in the northeastern United States, but not the southern United States. This study demonstrates the potential of participatory science (also known as citizen science) datasets like eBird for inferring variation in demographic rates and introduces a new complementary approach towards illuminating the macrodemography of North American birds at comprehensive continental extents. 

Every night during spring and autumn, the mass movement of migratory birds redistributes bird abundances found on the ground during the day. However, the connection between the magnitude of nocturnal migration and the resulting change in diurnal abundance remains poorly quantified. If departures and landings at the same location are balanced throughout the night, we expect high bird turnover but little change in diurnal abundance (stream‐like migration). Alternatively, migrants may move simultaneously in spatial pulses, with well‐separated areas of departure and landing that cause significant changes in the abundance of birds on the ground during the day (wave‐like migration). Here, we apply a flow model to data from weather surveillance radars (WSR) to quantify the daily fluxes of nocturnally migrating birds landing and departing from the ground, characterizing the movement and stopover of birds in a comprehensive synoptic scale framework. We corroborate our results with independent observations of the diurnal abundances of birds on the ground from eBird. Furthermore, we estimate the abundance turnover, defined as the proportion of birds replaced overnight. We find that seasonal bird migration chiefly resembles a stream where bird populations on the ground are continuously replaced by new individuals. Large areas show similar magnitudes of take‐off and landing, coupled with relatively small distances flown by birds each night, resulting in little change in bird densities on the ground. We further show that WSR‐inferred landing and take‐off fluxes predict changes in eBird‐derived abundance turnover rate and turnover in species composition. We find that the daily turnover rate of birds is 13% on average but can reach up to 50% on peak migration nights. Our results highlight that WSR networks can provide real‐time information on rapidly changing bird distributions on the ground. The flow model applied to WSR data can be a valuable tool for real‐time conservation and public engagement focused on migratory birds' daytime stopovers.