• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Reliability of identifications: Some research (1 Viewer)

Reasonably early on I twigged that it was a simple repetition of the same species, which kinda spoilt it for me. (I read the title properly as 'Common' and 'British' btw).

Maybe would have required a trickier analysis, but think throwing in a few other species or a similar test with some other actual id challenges (think eg a linnet or twite, a dunnock, or even an Azure Tit for the relevant sections)



I think it's interesting and a start - obviously more can be done, and with increasing citizen science and interest in wildlife a worthwhile area to double-check on how it is all going by attempting to research what people's motivations/reasonings/shorcomings are (cf recent ebird thread).
 
Reasonably early on I twigged that it was a simple repetition of the same species, which kinda spoilt it for me. (I read the title properly as 'Common' and 'British' btw).

Maybe would have required a trickier analysis, but think throwing in a few other species or a similar test with some other actual id challenges (think eg a linnet or twite, a dunnock, or even an Azure Tit for the relevant sections)

I think it's interesting and a start - obviously more can be done, and with increasing citizen science and interest in wildlife a worthwhile area to double-check on how it is all going by attempting to research what people's motivations/reasonings/shorcomings are (cf recent ebird thread).

Dan

The eBird quiz can be quite addictive when you set it to more challenging locations and produces a byproduct of rating photos, inputting information that assists on their database and correcting errors:-

https://ebird.org/quiz/

Some of the photos are unidentifiable though.

I flagged a Lesser Black-backed Gull photo labelled as a Herring Gull yesterday from Somerset for this year. (Possibly just mislabelling as it was an adult.)

There was a German one where you got a score and it was timed which I messed around with in the 90's. Not sure if that is still around.

All the best
 
Cheers Paul, will have a look.

Whilst on quizzes (as a tool for advancement), there are two others ...

One was a counting birds in flocks quiz - you were shown a flock of birds quickly passing across the screen and had a few seconds only to try and guesstimate/estimate numbers (funnily enough bumped into the German programmer who made it some years back in Israel whilst birding).

Second was here on BF - a user (from Scandinavia I think) had a quiz in their bottom signature line with a random selection of 10 or so (N Europe) bird songs/calls to identify.


Both pretty useful, anyone know if either still around?
 
Just tried it and achieved a score which says I'm an expert.....................................................................................................................
So it's obviously rubbish;)

The numbers don't lie, Richard, you'll just have to accept your new found status!
 
Just tried it and achieved a score which says I'm an expert.....................................................................................................................
So it's obviously rubbish;)

I used to play it as Bavarian Birding too, and enjoyed it. I just played three rounds now and I didn't do too badly, considering how long it's been since I was last in Europe.
 
It would be interesting to repeat such a study, but with more sensible bird choice.

I thought the choice was ok, it tested people on their ability to continually recognise the same species from different anglea, in alternate plumage and in a different medium.

You can't expect a survey such as this to test you on separating Icterine and Melodious Warblers or Crested Lark from Thekla - can you?

I said many years ago, with the emergence of the info services, if there are 5-6 Icterine Warblers on the East cost of the UK, it gives some people the impression that they are abundant and that if you go, you will find one. They don't always appreciate that those 5-6 birds are spread along 400 miles of coastline.
 
Last edited:
Dan

The eBird quiz can be quite addictive when you set it to more challenging locations and produces a byproduct of rating photos, inputting information that assists on their database and correcting errors:-

https://ebird.org/quiz/

Some of the photos are unidentifiable though.

I flagged a Lesser Black-backed Gull photo labelled as a Herring Gull yesterday from Somerset for this year. (Possibly just mislabelling as it was an adult.)

There was a German one where you got a score and it was timed which I messed around with in the 90's. Not sure if that is still around.

All the best

I've seen some odd records on eBird. There was a 'winter wren' in Kent recently and I've seen some exotic South American species listed for what was obviously a pied wagtail. Not sure that I have the ability to 'flag' such errors though as I'm not a 'reviewer'.
 
I've seen some odd records on eBird. There was a 'winter wren' in Kent recently and I've seen some exotic South American species listed for what was obviously a pied wagtail. Not sure that I have the ability to 'flag' such errors though as I'm not a 'reviewer'.

My entire life's sightings were riddled with Winter Wren sightings a few years ago. They were substituted from Eurasian Wren, when I migrated my data at some point. Might have been from Bird Recorder to Ebird, or BTO to Ebird.
I didn't notice, until the queries started coming from Ebird reviewers!
I also had a Wrentit find it's way onto my UK sightings at one point, suspect that was finger trouble on my part.
 
My entire life's sightings were riddled with Winter Wren sightings a few years ago. They were substituted from Eurasian Wren, when I migrated my data at some point. Might have been from Bird Recorder to Ebird, or BTO to Ebird.
I didn't notice, until the queries started coming from Ebird reviewers!
I also had a Wrentit find it's way onto my UK sightings at one point, suspect that was finger trouble on my part.

I think that it was a water tryant in Regent's Park, London.
It's good to know that the reviewers catch these things eventually.
 
I've seen some odd records on eBird. There was a 'winter wren' in Kent recently ...

My entire life's sightings were riddled with Winter Wren sightings a few years ago. They were substituted from Eurasian Wren, when I migrated my data at some point. Might have been from Bird Recorder to Ebird, or BTO to Ebird.
Just one of the reasons why I (and many others) find ebird's American imperialism so annoying. This would never have happened if the USA hadn't imposed their naming of their local [at the time subspecies] name on Troglodytes troglodytes globally :storm:
 
Just one of the reasons why I (and many others) find ebird's American imperialism so annoying. This would never have happened if the USA hadn't imposed their naming of their local [at the time subspecies] name on Troglodytes troglodytes globally :storm:

I cannot help feeling that the Americans have done what we British have done in earlier times! I'm watching the Crown on Netflix - we were imperialists until fairly recently.
 
Warning! This thread is more than 4 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top