A few points about the eBird report of the trip from Cass Park to Sheldrake:
* It was logged on a hand-held device in real-time, a system which sometimes initially gives misleading location. Gary, who submitted the report, is correcting this. I just wanted to make sure no one is confused in the meantime. I'm sorry I put him on the spot.
* Yes, some reports are for longer times or longer distances than is ideal for some research purposes, and some reports are placed in generalized locations. This can be frustrating, depending on how you want to use the information which another person has submitted, but the total distance and total time are given with most checklists, and at least in some cases the location description will indicate if it is generalized, to a whole county, for instance.
I think the proper warning is not "garbage in, garbage out," because every researcher should know that. Rather, the warning should be "caveat emptor," because the researcher should first examine whether the data is appropriate for the purpose or find a way to ensure that it is. Fortunately eBird includes information to allow such examinations.
Meanwhile, another reminder is, "There's no disputing taste." Birders use eBird to keep track of various aspects of our passion. If folks want to use eBird to compare their big-day-around-the-lake tour from year to year, that's up to them. If the information accompanying those lists indicates a long-distance, many-hour outing through various habitats, and the marker is in the middle of the lake, then obviously the data will be good for some purposes but not for others. (I've looked up such lists and wished the location info was more precise, too, but those particular lists weren't created for my purpose.) Because I place the eBird location pointer at the mid-point of my "standard" walk between my house and Cayuga Lake, many water birds appear to be reported on land, which is a heads-up to anyone else looking at my list, but I usually include remarks describing where the birds actually were. At least the observations were submitted, which is a challenge for many of us.
Yes, you've described an ideal list: under five miles and restrictedt to a single habitat. I agree, and I aspire to make better standard-research lists, but meanwhile I'll just commit to including enough information to let the researcher be the judge of how it can be used.
Finally, I want to correct my own misleading information. Since the Cayuga Waterfront Trail loop is 2 miles long, I should have said the eBird report gave the misimpression that our 19-mile "Cass Park trip" took us 9.5 times around the loop, not 38.
* It was logged on a hand-held device in real-time, a system which sometimes initially gives misleading location. Gary, who submitted the report, is correcting this. I just wanted to make sure no one is confused in the meantime. I'm sorry I put him on the spot.
* Yes, some reports are for longer times or longer distances than is ideal for some research purposes, and some reports are placed in generalized locations. This can be frustrating, depending on how you want to use the information which another person has submitted, but the total distance and total time are given with most checklists, and at least in some cases the location description will indicate if it is generalized, to a whole county, for instance.
I think the proper warning is not "garbage in, garbage out," because every researcher should know that. Rather, the warning should be "caveat emptor," because the researcher should first examine whether the data is appropriate for the purpose or find a way to ensure that it is. Fortunately eBird includes information to allow such examinations.
Meanwhile, another reminder is, "There's no disputing taste." Birders use eBird to keep track of various aspects of our passion. If folks want to use eBird to compare their big-day-around-the-lake tour from year to year, that's up to them. If the information accompanying those lists indicates a long-distance, many-hour outing through various habitats, and the marker is in the middle of the lake, then obviously the data will be good for some purposes but not for others. (I've looked up such lists and wished the location info was more precise, too, but those particular lists weren't created for my purpose.) Because I place the eBird location pointer at the mid-point of my "standard" walk between my house and Cayuga Lake, many water birds appear to be reported on land, which is a heads-up to anyone else looking at my list, but I usually include remarks describing where the birds actually were. At least the observations were submitted, which is a challenge for many of us.
Yes, you've described an ideal list: under five miles and restrictedt to a single habitat. I agree, and I aspire to make better standard-research lists, but meanwhile I'll just commit to including enough information to let the researcher be the judge of how it can be used.
Finally, I want to correct my own misleading information. Since the Cayuga Waterfront Trail loop is 2 miles long, I should have said the eBird report gave the misimpression that our 19-mile "Cass Park trip" took us 9.5 times around the loop, not 38.
--Dave Nutter
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