I (and others as well) often use eBird to narrow down my choices when it comes to making the correct id on some birds. eBird now has a great map online that shows the amount of data that gets submitted. It makes me rethink my stance on the issue a bit. While the map is only for January, but it's pretty evident that using eBird data to determine the occurrence of a bird in the Mid-West is often not very useful. It would be interesting to see the same map for other months.