Last night, Dave Nutter wrote: Those of you looking at eBird may notice a couple species recorded on 4 January from Cass Park which look like they should have added to the count week. The AMERICAN PIPIT and NORTHERN PINTAIL that a gang of us saw in Sheldrake were recorded on our trip starting from Cass Park, but the eBird marker stayed deceptively in Cass Park, as if we had gone 38 times around the Cayuga Waterfront Trail instead going 19 miles up the lake.
You don't have to be a Quality Engineer for 27 years to see this report points to a great example of bad input/ bad output. It seems more and more 'Big Days' and 'Trips around the lake' and the like are being entered into eBird as one traveling count instead of a series of counts. This places species and species numbers in counties, habitats, etc. where they don't belong and as Dave's account points out, data at the local level is unusable and misleading. Just another example, a recent report in the Northern end of the basin....... A 10.5 hour trip over 90 miles is condensed into one data point placing 100 turkeys and 100 robins in a Hotspot location in the middle of December. Not to single one out, but to make a point, because there are many others. My understanding is, traveling counts should be 5 miles or less. Maybe any traveling counts greater than 5 miles entered into eBird can be kicked back like the 'AM/PM is required to specify the start time' error alert. Someone may still cram a daylong trip into one count falsely reporting as less than 5 miles but given the profile of the average eBirder they will probably only do it once. Apologies if you need one but it's been bugging me. Dave To: [email protected] From: [email protected] Subject: [cayugabirds-l] woodpecker bedtime; further note about count week Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 04:15:26 +0000 This afternoon as I was leaving the lakeshore to walk home, I heard a HAIRY WOODPECKER calling. After some searching, I saw it fly a short distance in the tall trees overhead, and got it in binoculars - a male. It then flew again in the same direction, but alit on the blue-painted shingle siding of a house, which I noticed had a couple of woodpecker-workings drilled in it. In fact it was perched at the largest of these holes, and it quickly dove in. That was at 4:25pm. It was cool to see a bird go to bed, yet I was uncomfortable about it being within the wall of a house. It made me think of bot-flies. Often on my walks I am so late going home that I observe no birds on my return trip. After actually seeing a bird go to bed, I thought that would be the case. Then at 4:39 I heard a RED-TAILED HAWK call several times from the Hog Hole woods, although I didn't see it. At 4:51 I was surprised to see a single MOURNING DOVE flying north over Cass Park. In the gathering dusk at 4:56 I saw a single MOURNING DOVE flying south and I wondered if it was the same indecisive bird. At 4:57 a second RED-TAILED HAWK screamed once and flew north past me. A couple minutes later, after I'd walked past where I last saw the Mourning Dove, I again saw the/this insomniac dove fly farther south and across the Inlet. How do birds decide where to sleep, and why couldn't this one make up its mind? Those of you looking at eBird may notice a couple species recorded on 4 January from Cass Park which look like they should have added to the count week. The AMERICAN PIPIT and NORTHERN PINTAIL that a gang of us saw in Sheldrake were recorded on our trip starting from Cass Park, but the eBird marker stayed deceptively in Cass Park, as if we had gone 38 times around the Cayuga Waterfront Trail instead going 19 miles up the lake. --Dave Nutter -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: Welcome and Basics Rules and Information Subscribe, Configuration and Leave Archives: The Mail Archive Surfbirds BirdingOnThe.Net Please submit your observations to eBird! -- -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
