eBird and Birding on the move (3 Viewers)

[01101001]

You can e.g. design lists that everything you enter in the field will have coordinates, while everything you add at the end of your walk, is just addition of species. So e.g. you have a walk for an hour and see / hear 10 birds. One of them is a species you monitor in your area, so you enter that one while doing your walk. All others you add when you finish your ebird list. That wouldn't take anything more than the voluntarily effort from the observer to add a bit more detail in the list, about certain species.

Adding locations for just the interesting species sounds like a good option, and I could even do it retrospectively from memory for some of the more interesting--for me--records.

 

[Kirk Roth]

Adding locations for just the interesting species sounds like a good option, and I could even do it retrospectively from memory for some of the more interesting--for me--records.

This is commonly done - there is a data format called "incidental" which is basically for non-areal or non-point counts. On the topic of purposes, it does not contribute much to the macro-level things that Cornell is looking for.... but it is a really good tool for those birders interested in specific locations, building their lists, and whatnot for personal usage.

 

[01101001]

I was thinking more about habitat preferences data. I don't think any of those sightings would necessarily be replicable. And I hate leaving one-bird incidental checklists unless there is a real reason: no time, no battery or just for the sake of uploading a recording.

 

[jurek]

But in order for that to truly work, though, you'd have to enter every single individual bird the moment you see it/hear it. And not just every "good" or "interesting" bird, but every last Blackcap, American Robin, or Tropical Kingbird.

This is not exact but works on ornitho.ch and observation. by default. Orders of magnitude better than the current ebird.

 

[Kirk Roth]

I was thinking more about habitat preferences data. I don't think any of those sightings would necessarily be replicable. And I hate leaving one-bird incidental checklists unless there is a real reason: no time, no battery or just for the sake of uploading a recording.

This is what I was talking about earlier though - I just wouldn't want to use eBird or any citizen science effort for habitat preference studies, unless it is some very macro-level scale such as elevation. When birds make habitat selection, its so often based on things like botany, cover, hydrology, snags, predator presence, and so on that no researcher would want to rely on anything on the scale of Google Maps. A simple cloudy-day GPS error would be enough to throw the data.

If we ask any tool to do something its not intended to do, there is risk and mitigation involved. I would never use nor expect a global-level dataset to inform me much about fine-level details. Sure, if I'm a birder and lucky enough to find these details documented by some generous eBirder, then yes that will help me know what sort of shrubbery to be focusing on for my target species. But that certainly isn't science, as you're getting at.

 

[01101001]

I mean, apparently, other global databases could do that, but it seems that it wasn't the priority of the people behind eBird (or maybe they only use those very short checklists for that because some eBird-based habitat data already exists--and can be found in the 'Science' tab).

 

[Kirk Roth]

I mean, apparently, other global databases could do that, but it seems that it wasn't the priority of the people behind eBird (or maybe they only use those very short checklists for that because some eBird-based habitat data already exists--and can be found in the 'Science' tab).

I think you are exactly correct. There are other databases with other purposes and goals. And eBird does some of these things in a limited capacity, but when you explore the Science tab, you see a heavy emphasis on global trend sort of information; and I'm sure they present it prominently because that is their big focus.

In view of that, the exact shrub where I find a Mourning Warbler sort of comes out in the wash.

 

[jurek]

I always though that Ebird has such a feature because it started as a database of bird census plots and sites. It then expanded for general birders and is able to gather lots of data this way, but this feature remained hard coded.

Now, Ebird already gathers exact coordinates and reliance on exact spots is already coded in two other non-commercial wildlife databases. Therefore re-coding should be completely possible.

 

[01101001]

That sounds like the most probable answer to me as well.

(sorry for the weird wording of the previous version)

 

[jurek]

Just to add - there is a whole group of low density species, which have few territories and large areas of seemingly identical habitat in between are unoccupied. There an exact information is necessary to find them - something which Ebird does not easily provide.

 

[qwerty5]

I think the primary benefit of recording exact locations would be for other birders. It's annoyingly rare for eBirders to add any helpful info about interesting birds on their lists. When researching Baxter State Park in Maine last year, I found that interesting boreal species were usually reported on checklists several miles long, to imprecise hotspots, with absolutely no comments. Now, would everyone actually use precise locations accurately? No, but I imagine it would be better than just a 5 mile checklist located somewhere inside a few square mile hotspot.