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Despite the huge normalising influence of the EU, Europe is and will always be a patchwork of languages, cultures and institutions. The birding scene reflects this. Visitors from North America or Australia might be surprised to learn there is no uniform system for reporting or viewing bird sightings in Europe. Even visitors from neighbouring countries typically struggle to find out what has been seen where. There are sometimes even multiple systems within a single country! The point of this post is to provide a guide to European birding portals for visitors and travellers. I cover two main questions:
Portals with international reacheBird deserves special mention as a truly international birding portal. In Europe, eBird coverage is very variable. Some countries (e.g., Portugal) use it as their primary portal. In others (e.g., the UK) it is useful but not dominant, while in still others (e.g., the Netherlands) it is dwarfed in its user base by the local portal. The table below should give a rough idea:  Top-level eBird regions (mostly countries) ranked by the number of lists per million inhabitants from January to April 2024. Only regions with at least 100 000 inhabitants are shown. eBird's interface is available in many major languages (click the 'world' icon up the top right). In addition, eBird provides species common names in a very large number of languages, with coverage ranging from global (currently for 10+ languages) to regional or country-specific (see here for current coverage in each language). If you have an account, you can change your language preferences for common names by clicking the 'person' icon at the top right and then choosing 'Preferences'. To see rare bird sightings for a particular region, navigate to 'Explore' in the top menu and then click 'Alerts'. In the box underneath 'Rare Bird Alerts', type the name of the region you are interested in and then click 'View'. You will see rare bird sightings from the last 7 days. By default, these are sorted taxonomically. You can click 'Sort by' and then 'Date' at the top right to see the most recent observations first. If you make an eBird account, you can also sign up to receive email alerts of rare species in any region. When searching for a region, it's worth being aware of some quirks of eBird's region naming conventions. For top-level regions (e.g., countries and overseas territories), the names are in English, regardless of your language settings for the interface. Subregions usually carry their local administrative names, at least for countries that write using the Latin alphabet. Moreover, the search only works well if your input matches the beginning of the eBird name for the subregion. For instance, typing in 'Madeira' will get you nowhere, because the region is stored as its official Portuguese name 'Região Autónoma da Madeira'. All of this can make it hard to find regions in a country you're not familiar with. The best solution is to look up the top-level region by clicking 'Explore' in the top menu and then entering the region name under 'Explore Regions'. If you scroll down, you will find a list of subregions ordered by the number of checklists and species in the last month. You can click 'All Subregions' to see the full list. This allows you to see the eBird nomenclature for all subregions in this region. By clicking on any subregion's name, you can use the same procedure to find the names of sub-subregions. To see sightings of a particular species, you will need to make an account. Once logged in, click on 'Explore' and then 'Species Maps'. Enter the species' scientific or common name in the box at the top left. You can also specify a time period or a particular location in a flexible address format. Exact locations are shown once you zoom in, with sightings in the last month shown in red. Lastly, you can view birding hotspots in any region by clicking 'Explore' in the top menu and then 'Explore Hotspots'. Hotspot markers are coloured by the number of species that have been sighted there. The colouring is not normalised in any way by the number of visitors, so take it with a grain of salt. For example, hotspots near large cities typically have higher species counts than more remote sites. Apart from eBird, there are two birding portal families with international reach within Europe:
Below I consider each country individually. Northern EuropeIceland: With the best eBird coverage in Europe, you probably won't need anything else here! Faroe Islands: Like Iceland, the Faroes are well-covered by eBird. United Kingdom: Given that the UK has possibly the highest density of birders in the world, its birding portal landscape is a bit disappointing. There's a lot of information available, but it is spread across multiple platforms with either poor interfaces or subscription-based models. eBird has fairly good coverage. The most popular option seems to be BirdTrack. To get anything out of this platform, you will need to make an account. After logging in, to see rare bird sightings, navigate to 'Explore data' in the menu on the left, then click 'Recent sightings map'. Click on the small cog symbol in the top right corner of the map. A group of drop-down menus should appear at the bottom of the map. Under 'Scope', choose 'Notable'. The map will now show all notable sightings. There doesn't seem to be any way to summarise the observations. Moreover, the observations don't even appear on the map until you zoom in quite far. Overall, this is a terrible interface. To see sightings of a particular species, you can type in the English or scientific name of a species in the box labelled 'Species'. In addition to eBird and BirdTrack, there are two platforms that rely on a paid subscription model: Bird Guides and Rare Bird Alert. Both sites provide limited information to non-subscribers. Ireland: eBird coverage is reasonable here. BirdWatch Ireland encourages the use of BirdTrack (see United Kingdom above). In addition, Irish Birding provides a database of bird sightings. Navigate to the 'Sightings' tab in the top menu. The form is fairly self-explanatory. Rare sightings are highlighted in green. As far as I can tell, there is no way to filter out only rare sightings. Norway: The Norwegian portal Artsobservasjoner began its life as a clone of the Swedish site Artportalen and has a similar lovely interface. It covers all animals, as well as plants, fungi and lichen. You can switch to English at the top right. To see rare bird sightings for a particular region, just click on the region on the map. Then, next to 'SPECIES GROUP' at the top, select 'Birds'. Sightings are automatically sorted by rarity. To see sightings of a particular species, click the 'Search sightings' tab near the top. The form is pretty self-explanatory. You can view sightings either on a map or as a list. All of this is possibly without making an account. Sweden: Artportalen is a lovely, user-friendly site that covers all animals, as well as plants, fungi and lichen. You can switch to English at the top right. To see rare bird sightings for a particular region, just click on the region on the map. Then, next to 'SPECIES GROUP' at the top, select 'Birds'. Sightings are automatically sorted by rarity. To see sightings of a particular species, click the 'Search' tab near the top and then 'Sightings'. The form is pretty self-explanatory. You can view sightings either on a map or as a list. All of this is possibly without making an account. Denmark: DOFbasen is a little clunky but it gets the job done. The site is only partially translated into English. To see rare bird sightings, first click 'Observationer' up the top left. You can click 'See page in English' at the end of the right column. By default, you will see a list of noteworthy observations for the current date. You can choose to only see rarities using the drop-down menu under 'Observations' up the top left. You can also restrict the search to certain counties. To see sightings of a particular species, hover over 'Observationer' at the top left. Then click 'Søg observationer'. You should see an input form in Danish. You can set a time range using the drop-down menu next to 'Periode' at the top left. The default option 'Seneste antal dage' means 'Last X days'. You can set the number of days in the box immediately below. Alternatively, you can select a precise time range using 'År/halvår/måned/uge/dar'. The first box directly underneath 'Fra år/til år' means 'From year/until year'. The next box (Halvår) allows you to select the first or second half of the year. Or you can select a particular month (Måned) or week of the year (uge). To search for a particular species, find the box 'Art/artsgruppe' further down and select 'Art'. In the box that appears below, type the name of the species in Danish (the Wikipedia page List of birds in Denmark has Danish translations in brackets next to each species). Once you are ready, click 'SØG' at the bottom to search. Options will appear at the top of the page to view the results either as a table ('Observationstabel') or on a map ('Observationskort'). Finland: eBird is quite widely used here. The local platform Tiira is in Finnish and Swedish only and will take a bit of work unless you speak one of these two languages. To see rare bird sightings, click on 'Havaintosivut' in the menu on the left. You will see a list of Finnish regions (the last entry 'Koko Suomi' means 'all of Finland'). Click on 'Aikajärjestys' next to any region to see a list of rarities sorted by date, or 'Systemaattinen järjestys' to see a list sorted taxonomically. You might find this dictionary helpful for translating bird names between Finnish and English (scientific names are not presented). To see sightings of a particular species, you will need to make an account. Click 'Rekisteröidy' at the top, fill in your details (you might want to enable Browser translation) and then click 'Rekisteröidy' at the bottom. You will get an email with a password. After logging in with this password, you can click on 'Perushaku' in the menu on the left. Enter the scientific or Finnish name of the species in the box next to 'Laji'. You can select a region in the drop-down menu directly underneath (remember that 'Koko Suomi' means 'all of Finland'). The radio buttons in the right-hand column allow you to choose a time period. The first two options correspond to 'today' and 'yesterday and today', respectively. The third ('Edelliset 7 päivää') means 'last 7 days' and the fourth ('Edelliset 30 päivää') means 'last 30 days'. The final option 'Päivämäärä' allows you to set a date range using the format dd.mm.yyyy. When you are ready, click 'Hae' at the bottom to see a list of recent observations. You can view them on a map by clicking 'Näytä havainnot kartalla'. Estonia: eElurikkus is an easy-to-use platform that covers almost all groups of life. You can switch to English at the top right. To see rare bird sightings, click on 'Rare birds in Estonia' under 'Observations' in the left column. You can click on any sighting to see further details, including a map. To see sightings of a particular species, enter the scientific or Estonian name of the species under 'OCCURRENCE RECORDS' at the top right. You should see a list of observations. You can narrow down the time period and region by clicking 'Narrow search results'. Click on any observation to see further details. To see all observations on a map, click the 'Map' tab. Latvia: Dabas dati is a friendly site available in Latvian, English, Russian and Lithuanian (click the flags at the top right). Recent noteworthy observations are shown at the top of the left column. Only the Latvian and scientific names are shown, but you can click on any species to see both the English name and a map of where the sighting occurred. To see sightings of a particular species, click on 'Selection of observations' in the top menu. To use the 'Search species' box, enter the species' scientific or Latvian name. Alternatively, you can find a species using the series of drop-down menus directly underneath. Underneath this you can choose a data range, then click 'Search below'. Observations are automatically shown both as a list and on a map. Lithuania: The Lithuanian Ornithological Society maintains a list of rare bird sightings. You can switch to English by clicking the flag in the top right, then click the blue button 'All observations' on the right-hand side. Locations are given in text descriptions in Lithuanian (no maps). In addition, there is the Fenologija database, which is in Lithuanian only (Browser translation gets you quite far). The linked page shows a list of observations at the bottom. To see rare bird sightings, click 'Visi stebėjimai' directly above this list on the right. Check the box next to the grey circle with an 'L' inside and then click the blue button 'leškoti' on the left. Locations are given in text descriptions in Lithuanian (no maps). To see sightings of a particular species, enter the scientific or Lithuanian name in the box labelled 'Rūšis' at the top right and click click the blue button 'leškoti' on the left. Central EuropeNetherlands: The exceptionally well-designed Waarneming.nl covers almost all groups of organisms. It is available in English, Dutch, French, German and Spanish, with partial support for many other languages (click up the top right). To see rare bird sightings, click 'Explore' and then 'Observations' up the top left. You can narrow the search down by date, province and rarity level. Click on any observation to see more details, including a map. To see sightings of a particular species, click 'Explore' and then 'Species'. Type in the species' name and click the search icon. You can then click on the species' name to see more details, including a list of observations (tab 'Observations') and an occurrence map (tab 'Maps'). All of this is very intuitive and can be done without making an account. An honourable mention also to Trektellen, which collects sightings of migrating birds worldwide. It is used mainly by Dutch birders. Belgium: The Belgian sites Waarnemingen.be and Observations.be are built on the same platform as the Dutch Waarneming.nl and use an identical interface (see Netherlands above). The two Belgian sites are mirrors of each others, originating respectively in the Flemish and Walloon regions. All of these sites are in turn part of the Observation.org group. The latter site provides worldwide coverage (excluding the Netherlands and Belgium) and is used mainly by Dutch and Belgian birders. All of these sites use the same login credentials, so if you make an account with one, it will work on the others too. Luxembourg: In line with its geographical location and small size, Luxembourg is served by both the Ornitho platform (via ornitho.de or its mirror ornitho.lu, see Germany below) and by Observation.org (using either the worldwide site or the Belgian sites Waarnemingen.be or Observations.be, see Netherlands above). Both platforms have good coverage for Luxembourg. France (including Monaco): France is well-covered by the Faune network, which is built on the same platform as Ornitho, with which it shares login credentials. The national portal Faune France is available in French and English (click up the top right). There is also a plethora of regional portals (you can see a list here), most of which are available only in French. The national portal receives data from all of the local portals.
Germany: ornitho.de is a clunky but useable platform with good coverage in Germany. It's available in English, German and French (click up the top left). To see rare bird sightings, you can click either 'Last 2 days' or 'Last 7 days' in the menu on the left (under 'Birds of Germany' and then 'Observations'). You can then select a rarity level at the top. By default, you will see all observations of that rarity level nationwide. To filter out a particular region, you will need to first select a German state (these are the top row of two-letter abbreviations, see here) and then a district (= Landkreis) within that state (see here for a guide to the district abbreviations). Without an account, you can unfortunately only view either the whole country or one district at a time. It's a little more useable if you make an account. In the process, you will be asked to select which rarity levels and districts should be displayed by default on the home page and in lists of recent sightings. You can change these settings at any time by scrolling down to 'Personal settings' under 'My account' at the very bottom left. To see sightings of a particular species, click on 'Database queries' in the left menu (under 'Birds of Germany' and then 'Observations'). The tabs 'Periods', 'Species', 'Sites' etc. all set filters for the same query. Under 'Species', you can select a particular species. Under 'Sites', you can choose to see either all sightings nationwide (click 'All sites' at the top), sightings for any subset of districts (= Landkreise), or sightings within a particular municipality (= Gemeinde) within a district. Under 'Formatting result', you can choose to see the sightings either as a list (the first option) or on a map (the last option). The map doesn't allow you to zoom, so if you want to see precise locations for particular sightings, you'll need to use the list view and then click on the individual sightings for more details. Unless you submit at least 10 observations per month, database queries are limited to sightings from the past 14 days. Austria: ornitho.at is the main portal for Austria. Click up the top left to switch to English. To see rare bird sightings, you can click 'Last 2 days', 'Last 5 days' or 'Last 15 days' in the menu on the left (under 'Consulting' and then 'Observations'). You can then select a rarity level at the top. By default, you will see all observations of that rarity level nationwide. To filter out a particular region, you will need to first select an Austrian state and then a district (= Bezirk) within that state (see here for a guide to the district abbreviations).Without an account, you can only view either the whole country or one province at a time. It's a little more useable if you make an account. In the process, you will be asked to select which rarity levels and districts should be displayed by default on the home page and in lists of recent sightings. You can change these settings at any time by scrolling down to 'Personal settings' under 'My account' at the very bottom left. To see sightings of a particular species, click on 'Database queries' in the left menu (under 'Consulting' and then 'Observations'). The tabs 'Periods', 'Species', 'Sites' etc. all set filters for the same query. Under 'Species', you can select a particular species. Under 'Sites', you can choose to see sightings either nationwide (click 'All sites' at the top), for any subset of districts (= Bezirke), or for a particular municipality (= Gemeinde) within a district. Under 'Output format', you can choose to see the sightings either as a list (the first option) or on a map (the last option). The map doesn't allow you to zoom, so if you want to see precise locations for particular sightings, you'll need to use the list view and then click on the individual sightings for more details. Unless you regularly submit sightings, database queries are limited to sightings from the past 15 days. Switzerland (including Liechtenstein): ornitho.ch is the main portal for Switzerland. It covers birds and various other animal groups and is available in German, French, Italian and English (click up the top right). To see rare bird sightings, you can click 'The past 2 days', 'The past 5 days' or 'The past 15 days' in the menu on the left (under 'Consulting' and then 'Sightings'). You can then select a rarity level at the top. By default, you will see all observations of that rarity level in Switzerland and in neighbouring regions (all posted mainly by Swiss birders). To filter out a particular canton, click on its abbreviation (see here for a guide to the abbreviations).Without an account, you can only view either the whole database or one canton at a time. It's a little more useable if you make an account (click 'TAKING PART' at the top left). In the process, you will be asked to select which rarity levels and cantons should be displayed by default on the home page and in lists of recent sightings. You can change these settings at any time by scrolling down to 'Website customisation' under 'My account' at the very bottom left. To see sightings of a particular species, click on 'Search engine' in the left menu (under 'Consulting' and then 'Sightings'). The tabs 'Periods', 'Species', 'Sites' etc. all set filters for the same query. Under 'Species', you can select a particular species. Under 'Sites', you can choose to see sightings either nationwide (click 'All sites' at the top), for any subset of cantons, or for a particular municipality within a canton. Under 'Formatting result', you can choose to see the sightings either as a list (the first option) or on a map (the last option). The map doesn't allow you to zoom, so if you want to see precise locations for particular sightings, you'll need to use the list view and then click on the individual sightings for more details. Unless you regularly submit sightings, database queries are limited to sightings from the past 15 days. Poland: ornitho.pl is the main portal for Poland. It's based on the same platform as ornitho.de, but also has coverage for many non-avian animal groups. It's available in Polish, English, German and French (click up the top right). To see rare bird sightings, you can click either 'Last 2 days' or 'Last 5 days' in the menu on the left (under 'Consulting' and then 'Sightings'). You can then select a rarity level at the top. By default, you will see all observations of that rarity level nationwide. You can also filter out observations from a particular province (see the list of abbreviations here). Without an account, you can only view either the whole country or one province (= voivodeship) at a time. It's a little more useable if you make an account. In the process, you will be asked to select which rarity levels and provinces should be displayed by default on the home page and in lists of recent sightings. You can change these settings at any time by scrolling down to 'Website customisation' under 'My account' at the very bottom left. To see sightings of a particular species, click on 'Search engine' in the left menu (under 'Consulting' and then 'Sightings'). The tabs 'Periods', 'Species', 'Sites' etc. all set filters for the same query. Under 'Species', you can select a particular species. Under 'Sites', you can choose to see either all sightings nationwide (click 'All places' at the top), sightings for any subset of provinces, or for a single municipality within any province. Under 'Formatting result', you can choose to see the sightings either as a list (the first option) or on a map (the last option). The map doesn't allow you to zoom, so if you want to see precise locations for particular sightings, you'll need to use the list view and then click on the individual sightings for more details. Unless you regularly submit sightings, database queries are limited to sightings from the past 14 days. Czechia: eBird coverage for the Czech Republic is quite good. There is also a local portal AVIF, which is, unfortunately, particularly hard on the visitor. It is available only in Czech (I recommend using your browser's translator). The home page shows a list of recent sightings. To see rare bird sightings, click on the drop-down menu at the top under 'Vyhledávání' (Filters) and select 'Vzácná pozorováni' (Rare sightings). Unfortunately, only the Czech name of each species is shown (even the scientific name is missing). You can click on any observation to see more details, including the scientific name and a map (click the 'MAPA' tab on the right). To see sightings for a particular species, click 'PŘEJÍT NA POKROČILÉ' (advanced search) to the right of the drop-down menu. In the text box labelled 'Druhy', you can enter the scientific or Czech name of a species. Directly to the right, under 'Rarita pozorování' (Rarity of sightings) select 'všechna pozorování' (all observations). The options directly below species allow you to specify a period. If you click 'RELATIVNÍ', you can specify the number of days before the present date to search. 'ROZSAH' let's you select a date range and with 'SEZÓNNÍ' you can specify years. To the right of these options, you can specify a geographical range. With 'OBLAST V MAPĚ' (area on the map) selected, you can select a point by clicking on the map below. The option 'Okolí (km)' directly below then allows you to specify a radius in kilometres around this point. When you are ready, click the orange 'VYHLEDAT' button. You will see a list of observations below. You can click on any observation to see more details, including a map. To see a map of all observations, click the 'MAPA' tab. Slovakia: Slovakia has two platforms worth looking at. AVES Symfony is partially translated into several languages, although the home-page is essentially Slovak only. To see a bare-bones list of rare bird sightings, click on 'Pozorovania podliehajúce SFK' under 'VTÁKY NA SLOVENSKU' in the left menu. Both the scientific and Slovakian species names are shown. To see more details, you will need to make an account: Click on the green button 'PRHILÁSIŤ' on the right. You can then switch to English by clicking the flag at the top left. Click 'Register' at the bottom left, fill in your details and then click 'Create my account'. You will receive an email with a link to confirm your email address. After this, you can return to the main page (link above) and click 'PRHILÁSIŤ' again to log in. After logging in (and switching to English again if necessary), you should see a list of sightings. To see a detailed list of rare bird sightings, navigate to 'DATA' in the top menu, then 'FAUNISTIC COMMISION' and then 'OBSERVATION OF RARE SPECIES'. For any particular observation, you can click 'Show' in the right column and then 'MAP' to see the location on a map. To see sightings of a particular species, navigate to 'SEARCHING' and then 'SIMPLE' in the top menu. The form is pretty self-explanatory. The other platform is birding.sk. To switch to English, click the flag at the top right. The home page already shows a list of recent observations. To see rare bird sightings, click 'Rare'. To see sightings for a particular species, click the blue button with the filter icon. The form is self-explanatory. Note that if you have 'Rare' selected and search for a common species, you will see no results: You need to click 'Common' again manually. To clear all filters, click on the red button with the eraser symbol. To see full details of any observation, you will need to make an account by clicking 'Login' in the top menu. Fill in your details and click 'Sign up'. You might need to wait some time until your account is activated (for me it took less than a day). You will receive an email once your account is active. Once logged in, you can click on any particular observation to see more details, although as far as I can tell there are no maps. Hungary: birding.hu is an efficient and user-friendly portal that is available in Hungarian, English and German (click on the flags at the top right). Notable bird sightings from the last 14 days are shown on the home page by default. To see true rarities, click 'Species to be reported to HRC'. You can view the observations on a map by clicking the orange button labelled 'Map Mutat/Elrejt'. To search the database, you need to make an account by clicking 'Registration' in the top menu. The form asks for a verification code, but seems to work fine if you enter nothing for this field. Once you submit the form, you should receive an email with a link to activate your account. To see sightings for a particular species, first log in and then click 'Observations' and then 'Search observations' in the top menu. The form is self-explanatory. As before, you can see observations on a map by clicking the orange button labelled 'Map Mutat/Elrejt'. Improving coverage in Hungary is one objective of the EU-funded LIFE EBP project. Slovenia: Slovenia has a portal called NOAGS. To make an account, you need to email the administrator. I have no idea how much information is accessible to basic users (if you know this portal, please let me know in the comments). Improving coverage in Slovenia is one objective of the EU-funded LIFE EBP project. Eastern EuropeRussia and Belarus: I'm not aware of any local portals for Russia or Belarus. Ukraine: Despite the war, Ukrainians are still birding. The locals seem to use eBird for sightings. Moldova: There is no local birding portal in Moldova. eBird coverage is also poor. Developing local birding portals in Moldova (along with several Western Balkan countries: see below) is one objective of the EU-funded LIFE EBP project, so hopefully we will see progress in the near future. Romania: Ornitodata covers birds, mammals and herps. It's available in Romanian only. The home page shows by default a list of recent sightings. To see sightings of a particular species, click on 'Filtrează rezultate' at the top right. Under "SPECIA", you enter a species' scientific or Romanian name and select it from the list. Under 'PERIODA' you can choose today ('Azi'), yesterday ('ieri'), the last 7 days ('Ultimele 7 zile'), the last 30 days ('Ultimele 30 zile'), this month ('Luna aceasta'), last month ('Ultima lună'), or a custom period from a calendar ('Alege perioada'). If you don't select a period, then the last 10 000 observations will be shown by default. Once you are ready, click the green button 'Aplică filtrele'. You can view the results as a list (the tab 'Lista observațiilor' at the top) or on a map (the tab 'Harta observațiilor'). In the list view, you can click on the little icon in the last column ('Fișă') to see more details, including a map. As far as I can see, there is no functionality for displaying recent notable sightings. Improving coverage in Romania is one objective of the EU-funded LIFE EBP project. Bulgaria: SmartBirds covers birds, mammals, herps, invertebrates, and protected plants. It's available in Bulgarian, English, Albanian and Macedonian (change language at the top). To see any useful data, you will need to make an account. To see sightings of a particular species, first log in, then click 'Public forms' and then 'Birds' in the left menu. The form is self-explanatory. You can see the results either as a list or on a map (the tabs directly above the list of observations). The interface is user-friendly although a little terse on details regarding the observations. As far as I can tell, the functionality for seeing recent notable sightings is not useful, as the filter is set too broadly and the list of sightings is too short. Improving coverage in Bulgaria is one objective of the EU-funded LIFE EBP project. Southern EuropePortugal: Portugal has some of the best eBird coverage in Europe! The Portuguese Society for Bird Protection (SPEA) has officially adopted eBird for its monitoring projects.
Spain (including Andorra): Spain is well-covered by birding portals, but no one site fully dominates. It has good coverage on both eBird and observation.org (see Netherlands above). In addition, the Ornitho family has local portals for Aragon (ornitho-aragon.es), the Basque country (ornitho.eus), Navarra (ornitho-navarra.es) and Catalonia including Andorra (ornitho.cat and its mirror ornitho.ad). All of the Ornitho portals cover various animal groups plus orchids and are available in Spanish, English and French. The Basque country and Navarra portals are additionally available in Basque and the Catalonia portal in Catalan. The Ornitho portals share a common interface. To see rare bird sightings, you can click either 'Last 2 days', 'Last 5 days' or 'Last 15 days' in the menu on the left (under 'Consulting' and then 'Sightings'). You can then select a rarity level at the top. By default, you will see all observations of that rarity level in the whole region covered by the portal. You can also filter out observations from a particular province (to decode the abbreviations see 'Symbol abbreviation' under 'Information' and then 'Help' in the left menu). Without an account, you can only view either the whole region or one province at a time. It's a little more useable if you make an account. In the process, you will be asked to select which rarity levels and provinces should be displayed by default on the home page and in lists of recent sightings. You can change these settings at any time by scrolling down to 'Website customisation' under 'My account' at the very bottom left. To see sightings of a particular species, click on 'Search engine' in the left menu (under 'Consulting' and then 'Sightings'). The tabs 'Periods', 'Species', 'Sites' etc. all set filters for the same query. Under 'Species', you can select a particular species. Under 'Sites', you can choose to see either all sightings regionwide (click 'All sites' at the top), sightings for any subset of provinces, or for a single municipality within any province. Under 'Formatting result', you can choose to see the sightings either as a list (the first option) or on a map (the last option). The map doesn't allow you to zoom, so if you want to see precise locations for particular sightings, you'll need to use the list view and then click on the individual sightings for more details. Unless you regularly submit sightings, database queries are limited to sightings from the past 15 days. Italy (including San Marino and the Vatican City): There seem to be two main portals for the Italian peninsula. EBN Italia provides a list of rare bird sightings based on data from Ubird (full search capabilities for the Ubird dataset are only available to paid members). Although the site is in Italian only, species names are provided in Italian and English. You can click on any observation to see more information, including a map. You can choose a particular species in the drop-down menu labelled 'Specie', but only rare species are listed and the names are in Italian. The Italian member of the Ornitho family ornitho.it is available in Italian, English, German and French (click up the top right). The home page shows a list of recent notable sightings. To see any more details, you need to make an account. In the process, you will be asked to select which rarity levels and Italian regions should be displayed by default on the home page and in lists of recent sightings. You can change these settings at any time by scrolling down to 'Website customisation' under 'My account' at the very bottom left. To see rare bird sightings, you can click 'The past 2 days', 'The past 5 days' or 'The past 15 days' in the menu on the left (under 'Consulting' and then 'Sightings'). You can set ad hoc filters for a particular region by clicking on the abbreviations (see here for a key). To see sightings of a particular species, click on 'Search engine' in the left menu (under 'Consulting' and then 'Sightings'). The tabs 'Periods', 'Species', 'Sites' etc. all set filters for the same query. Under 'Species', you can select a particular species. Under 'Sites', you can choose to see sightings either nationwide (click 'All sites' at the top), for any subset of regions, or for a particular municipality (= comune) within a region. Under 'Formatting result', you can choose to see the sightings either as a list (the first option) or on a map (the last option). The map doesn't allow you to zoom, so if you want to see precise locations for particular sightings, you'll need to use the list view and then click on the individual sightings for more details. Unless you regularly submit sightings, database queries are limited. Malta: As far as I know, Malta does not have its own dedicated birding portal. eBird coverage is ok. Croatia: The Croatian portal fauna.hr belongs to the Ornitho family and covers various other animal groups in addition to birds. It's available in Croatian, English and French (click up the top right). To see rare bird sightings, you can click either 'Last 2 days', 'Last 5 days' or 'Last 15 days' in the menu on the left (under 'Consulting' and then 'Sightings'). You can then select a rarity level at the top. By default, you will see all observations of that rarity level nationwide. You can also filter out observations from a particular county (see the list of abbreviations here). Without an account, you can only view either the whole country or one individual county at a time. It's a little more useable if you make an account. In the process, you will be asked to select which rarity levels and counties should be displayed by default on the home page and in lists of recent sightings. You can change these settings at any time by scrolling down to 'Website customisation' under 'My account' at the very bottom left. To see sightings of a particular species, click on 'Search engine' in the left menu (under 'Consulting' and then 'Sightings'). The tabs 'Periods', 'Species', 'Sites' etc. all set filters for the same query. Under 'Species', you can select a particular species. Under 'Sites', you can choose to see either all sightings nationwide (click 'All sites' at the top), sightings for any subset of counties, or for a single municipality within any county. Under 'Formatting result', you can choose to see the sightings either as a list (the first option) or on a map (the last option). The map doesn't allow you to zoom, so if you want to see precise locations for particular sightings, you'll need to use the list view and then click on the individual sightings for more details. Unless you regularly submit sightings, database queries are limited to sightings from the past 15 days. Improving coverage in Croatia is one objective of the EU-funded LIFE EBP project. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania and North Macedonia: In this contiguous block of countries in the Western Balkans, there are no local birding portals. eBird coverage is also typically poor (although slightly better in Serbia and Montenegro). Developing local birding portals for these countries (along with Moldova) is one objective of the EU-funded LIFE EBP project, so hopefully we will see progress in the near future. Greece: Greece does not seem to have publicly accessible birding portal. Improving coverage in Greece is one objective of the EU-funded LIFE EBP project. Cyprus: eBird coverage is quite good here. BirdLife Cyprus encourages the use of BirdTrack (see United Kingdom above). Türkiye: Doğa, the Turkish partner of BirdLife International, used to run a local portal called eKusBank. In 2015, this portal was absorbed into eBird, which is now the best stop for sightings in Turkey. Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan: As far as I am aware, there are no local birding portals for the Caucasus countries.
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