pbjosh
missing the neotropics
That’s what I’m getting at. eBird is going to have a better chance than anyone else.
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How does a hotspot work on Ebird? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Bewick
- Start date
You started this line of discussion by making incorrect assumptions and misrepresenting what eBird reviewers do, and are continuing to do so even though your errors have been explained. They are not hiding anything! They are providing a single accurate hotspot that birder's may use for a bird repeatedly seen at a single location, such as a feeder at a house. If the bird moves to a different location, birders should obviously use a different location, and eBird freely permits them to do so. The practice evolved because of reviewers' actual experience, as opposed to your speculation, which showed that when birders enter locations themselves many inaccurate locations result that prevent people from being able to determine where the bird was actually being seen. (Yes, lots of birders don't use the app/gps, especially when they want to record a single bird; if eBird only accepted track data, I agree there would be no need to create a hotspot for a bird repeatedly observed at a single location, but it would also make eBird much less flexible and convenient to use.)
As for app track data, eBird has no way of knowing whether a bird is being recorded at the same location it is being observed during a track. So there is no way eBird could use that data for individual locations. I suppose there could be an option to check, e.g. "I recorded all my observations at the location where I observed the bird." I imagine that is something they have considered and might consider in the future.
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Mysticete
Well-known member
Opus is great and all, but I think its poorly known even on this forum nevermind the general birding community. I'd hazard that ebird gets more hits from different users in a single morning than Opus does in a year.
As others have commented, the advantage of ebird taking this on is that they are already heavily used and well known, and have the infrastructure in place to maintain it.
Actual absence data from eBird complete checklists for an area is much better than using guesstimates. When you look at an iNaturalist map of occurrence for a butterfly example, where only presence is recorded, you don't know if greater density in one area than another is the result of more people reporting from the area or more butterflies there. Also, if one butterfly has many more records than another in an area, you don't know if it is because it is more abundant, or more people bother to report it because it is more striking.
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Most ebird records suffer from the same sort of issues. Sampling is inconsistent, incomplete. Some people don't record certain species (feral pigeons for example). All these reasons are why most use MaxEnt approaches now.
The point is not to replicate what exists in ebird, but to complement it. There are various areas which don't really exist elsewhere:
- maps of subspecies
- detailed ID criteria, esp with regard to confusion species [currently locked up within the ID forum], but see (e.g.)
Category:Empidonax - BirdForum Opus
Identifying small white-rumped swifts - BirdForum Opus - comprehensive discussion of alternative taxonomies for taxa (Avibase just lists them, doesn't give rationales) [,, taxonomy ,,]
- alternative common names (no-one has comprehensive lists(?))
- Candidate species (you're doing this... I'll convert to Opus when you've finished if you agree)
- guide to sites [currently little information, but could be added]
- open access description of subspecies (only source I know of is HBW which is paywalled)
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It's a real problem that a) the site info is scattered (cloud birders etc etc), b) format is inconsistent (have you ever tried to get stuff from PDFs programmatically). In principle you can at least see when wiki stuff was last updated—and in fact all edits to it.
Ebird should take the opportunity embrace the fact that sightings, trips/checklists and "hotspots" are 3 different things, and handle each appropriately. Log the first correctly, give us full (site-integrated) access to GPS traces for the second, and change the third to area-based with a proper site guide (website). And yes it would be easier for them to do this, but they steadfastly adhere to some of their less-than-sensible decisions (a hotspot is a point being one). Since they're not budging, then why not help make life easier for everyone else?
No not wrong, but with a different interest. You can learn a lot from the locations of individual birds. It's how many surveys, much ecological research works...
Complete checklists in eBird don't have the problems I mentioned with iNaturalist of not knowing when an absence of records shows absence of the species. If there is less sampling in an area, eBird will record that by noting the number of complete checklists recorded for the area--for example by displaying the area in gray on a map if there are no checklists, so you can know when there is insufficient data on abundance. But obviously, it is citizen science, so nothing will be perfect.
People with an interest in population dynamics and ecology (over and above the simple trainspotting approach to birding) do. The scientific community certainly does. Someone said the point of ebird is to collect data for science...
[I am not saying you should share this interest. But I am saying it is valid. Technically it's easy to implement—ebird app basically does it already. It keeps track of where you go. It's not much more effort to record where you record what.]
Of course it's more complex than this. You don't use number of checklists as a measure of effort (which is effectively what you're saying) as it's too crude. People spend different amounts of time / travel different distances on their trips, a checklist may be compiled by parties of different sizes, the watching may be done at different times of day etc. You have to look at all these if trying to derive an unbiased encounter probability. But MaxEnt approaches don't assume or require absence data. It makes them appropriate for a wide range of data including museum specimens
qwerty5
Controversial opinion generator
Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that a complete checklist in those areas is better than individual sightings.
Am am skeptical as to how prevelant this is. In my area the vast majority of non-incidental checklists are complete, and they don't have obviously skipped species. A much bigger problem is the reporting "1" of a species rather than using "X".
I like the idea, but if people can't get the concept of a complete checklist right, or accurate bird counts, then how do you expect them to log each bird at the right point?
I agree, at the bare minimum tracks should be visible to reviewers, which would be a big help with inaccurate locations.
Which is what eBird does (or attempts to do)
Thanks!, I've been working in these issues (for a living) for a long time...
Your first mistake is to assume gps coordinate means bird location, but it is just phone location. The distance between a bird and a phone location can be variable, but certainly is not 0 (it can be 0 one in a million observations), and often can be on the hundreds of meters range. I don;t really see how your suggestion would improve anything... but I keep my eyes open just in case you write it.
Your argument could serve well to diminish the utility of gls for bird conservation. Who en earth care on a bird location / migration path when there are errors on the 100s of Km?
I just want to remember to general public and readers that different needs mean different methods, it was teach in Field ecology 101 at least when I first step at Uni, the previous century, and it is still teach at least by myself (and other that I am aware, of course).
Not making that mistake at all...
Of course, in open habitats, the observer may be a long way away from the bird, in forest closer. But there are ways to correct for this. Information about exactly where the bird was recorded (yes I'm well aware that it's where the bird was recorded, not [exactly] where the bird was—that's obvious !) is still useful for several reasons:
- A checklist may cover many kms
- A checklist may cover many different habitat types
From personal experience, I would say that I tend to record certain species in more or less exactly the same part of my local park each time I see them. This isn't clear from my checklists...
To fully correct for differences in apparency etc would require a rigorous protocol, and probably extra measurements along the route like line of sight. Nonetheless, you can do a lot these days with remotely sensed data—e.g. you can tell something about how open the habitat was where the sighting was made and in this way estimate the likely maximum distance to the observer.
Sorry I don't understand this at all.
We agree. The point is that ebird throws away information which it could easily capture and which would be useful. Even with the corpus of ebird data as it stands, you would treat it differently depending on exactly what you're trying to estimate.
Andy Adcock
Worst person on Birdforum
Baffles me, the cult of ebird.
Never used it and don't intend to start, I've been in the field with people who were just so excited to put stuff on ebird at the end of the day, it was embarrassing. Many of the people I've met that put data on there, couldn't tell an orange from a pineapple and I've even seen them putting stuff on there that I've told them about. One instance I found a Short-tailed Nighthawk and the bloke I mentioned it too actually ran, to get a hotspot in the hotel grounds so he could report it.
Never used it and don't intend to start, I've been in the field with people who were just so excited to put stuff on ebird at the end of the day, it was embarrassing. Many of the people I've met that put data on there, couldn't tell an orange from a pineapple and I've even seen them putting stuff on there that I've told them about. One instance I found a Short-tailed Nighthawk and the bloke I mentioned it too actually ran, to get a hotspot in the hotel grounds so he could report it.
qwerty5
Controversial opinion generator
To each his own, obviously. I use it for several reasons:
a) It's a very easy way to keep a checklist for each birding location I visit in a day. On a typical birding morning or afternoon I'll have 3-5 checklists for specific locations in my local patch, while before eBird I would only make one. The mobile app also made my lists much more accurate as far as numbers of species go.
b) It compiles pretty much any sort of list you want (e.g. year, month, location lists, etc...) with no extra effort.
c) It's an easy way to share one's sightings with the birding community, and it's the best way to get info about what birds are being seen anywhere you want to look.
Of course some people will go insane with anything... but I'm happy to be part of the cult
I agree it gives some valuable things out of the box. And they do improve it (ability to edit past lists on the app, trip reports on the website). Apart from the stuff above, my main issue is I can't record non-birds easily or well. If I weren't lazy I'd do what I've always threatened and hack my own app.
pbjosh
missing the neotropics
I would also like to see eBird separate sightings from hotspots and lists. Log the sighting where it was if the person is in "real time" mode but still have it in their list. Then roll those sightings into hotspots but also have the detailed info there. Hotspots should be hierarchical as well. But I'm not holding my breath on that. Massive changes and they're pretty entrenched.
However, adding some editable contextual information to Hotspots is nowhere near as hard and I still think eBird is the best location for this info. It will be hard to keep it up to date but having a world full of hotspot editors already and the raw number of contributors makes it a lot more likely to be successful and useful there.
qwerty5
Controversial opinion generator
This would be a big help for researching new areas. Rather than looking at each of the ten (or 50!) hotspots at a park, you could just look at one overall hotspot. This is already implemented for National Wildlife Refuges, and I don't understand why it's not for all locations.
pbjosh
missing the neotropics
On the other hand almost all of the very good field birders I know use some sort of listing software. I and many others don't enter birds in real time but rather start lists in the right locations and then later fill them in. Having your data in a system that will then also tell you needs (both eBird and iGoTerra do this very well) is massively useful and a huge time saver. The birdfinding help and information available is tremendous. And I've never seen anyone ebirding in the way you describe. A few people obsessively entering things in the field yes. But if people are excited to enter things so be it, no need for you to be embarrassed about it. I would say I've seen more annoying behavior associated with iGoTerra actually, between the audible lifer dings and the questions about "what subspecies would that be here?"
