A little disturbing the negativity in this email but i'll try to
address all of it. Keep in mind I just started using Ebird regularly a
little over a year ago when they went global. Before that I wasn't
that interested because I couldn't pull in all of my sightings from
around the world. So it's not like i've been using this since it
started and am hyping it because of some emotional attachment from the
start. I wasn't an early adopter either.
1) I personally think Ebird is pretty self explanatory. Submit
Observations goes to a page that guides you through submitting
sightings, Explore data allows you to find all sorts of useful data,
and My Ebird is your own personal observation data. In a matter of
seconds, I went to Explore Data->Bar Charts and selected Minnesota and
picked a few hotspots (Murphy-Hanrehan) and was presented with a bar
chart that showed species distribution for every bird ever reported in
Murphy Hanrehan..how is that not useful? And looking at some of the
things I remember about the park, it's spot on. Palm, Yellow, and
Yellow-rumped warblers arrive first, then Nashville, and then the
rest...Hoodeds over-summer (because they breed) along with Yellow,
American Redstart and a few others...Dickcissels show up in very late
May and only are seen through June. The park is completely unbirded in
Dec/January... All this from a bar chart that took me less than a
minute to create. Some other cool things on the Explore data page
includes customizable alerts (which can be just looked at on ebird, or
even customized to send you email). Examples would be an alert to
inform you whenever a bird is reported on ebird that you have not seen
in the state (State birds), or an alert to inform you when a bird you
have not seen that year is reported in the state (Year bird), or even
when a bird you haven't seen in a specific county is reported (county
bird). It's also a great way to look at what is currently being seen
in a location you plan to go birding at. I'd go to Ebird before i'd
ever go to a listserv to find out information about recent sightings,
especially in states where it is extremely widely used (Arizona, most
of the NE, California, Florida, Texas) as I can get up to the minute
information about what is being seen where in a few clicks, from a much
larger set of people than generally posts sightings on a listserv.
There is plenty of stuff on ebird to help out even the most novice of users:
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/about/ebird-quick-start-guide -- Ebird
quick start guide
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/about/tutorial -- Tutorial on how to
get started
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/about/using-the-ebird-data-import-tool
-- Tutorial for uploading existing data into ebird
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/about/faq -- FAQ for often asked questions
3) Reliability.. Keep in mind, the same people that report to
listserves report to Ebird, just fewer of them for some states
unfortunately. However for every state there is at least one, and
generally multiple Ebird reviewers who review any flagged sightings.
Sightings are flagged based on a number of custom defined filters that
are as good as the people who do the ebird work for the area. For
example, in the fall in Kansas there are filters to flag any Meadowlark
sightings of any number beyond just a few because without calling, it
is nigh impossible to identify meadowlarks in Kansas to species given
how much range overlap there is with Western and Eastern. Too many
people were just blanket reporting eastern meadowlarks when that was
probably inaccurate, so a filter was created. Filters are also used to
build checklists for locations where you submit sightings for. If you
try to submit a checklist for Minnesota in January, there aren't going
to be warblers on that checklist, thus they don't show up on the
checklist you are presented to fill in. There is a lot more
information here:
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/about/ebird-data-quality
I found after importing my entire database of sightings that I actually
had several sightings in my own personal birder's diary database from
back in 2001-2003 when I was just starting birding that were just plain
incorrect identifications. An Ebird reviewer gently guided me to what
the likely correct bird was, and it was nice to get my personal
database cleaned up. Personally I think the attacks people make on
ebird and it's "reliability" are pretty out of touch. There are a lot
of Ebird reviewers that spend an awful lot of time making sure the data
is as valuable and as useful as it possibly can be. I've found much of
it to be spot on, and when a questionable sighting gets reported, it
gets flagged, reviewed and vetted by ebird reviewers and if it is
determined to be an incorrect sighting, it doesn't get confirmed. It
remains in your database, but it does not show up on public searched
henceforth. Ebird also allows to attach images to sightings now, which
ups the bar even more when it comes to reporting rarities. Someone
last week reported a Black Vulture in north central KS which is quite
rare for that area, and although he's a pretty good birder and would
have been believed anyways, he took a few pictures and attached them to
the ebird report, and with that there was absolutely no doubt of the
identification.
Like Larry Silvio stated, for those that have smart phones (if you
don't you should, they are worth it for birding alone! Two field
guides and all the bird songs for the country all on my phone..don't
even need to carry Sibleys anymore, it's on my phone!), there are apps
that allow you to submit ebird sightings through your phone while in
the field, there is an app that allows you to query what has recently
been seen in your area, notables in your area, rarities in your area or
nationally, etc.
In my opinion birding will continue to be benefited and moved forward
by ebird. The more people contribute, the better it gets.
Cheers,
Chris Fagyal
On Mon, 2 Apr 2012 13:38:01 -0500, Jim Ryan wrote:
I tried to use ebird years ago (circa 2004) and it was horrible.
I gave up.
I heard now it's better so I went back late last year. After farting
around on it for about half an hour, I still think it sucks.
I use computers everyday for work and have done so since 1995 (back in
the day of Windows 3.1) but I still can't figure out how to pull up
anything I'd consider useful from ebird. Maybe it's my left-handed but
logical brain but I must need to be led by the hand through the
wonderland that is ebird 'cuz I ain't finding it on my own.
Reliability is a whole 'nother factor - If I have no clue who a birder
is, or what their ID skill level is, I ain't going chasing after their
mis-identification. Does ebird have any sort of verification process
for the validity of their "scientific database" ??? There, I said it.
I already get good info from the MOUMN.org website and mostly reliable
info from the MOU and MNBird list servs. And oddly, sometimes it's
just fun to try your luck on your own.
I know I must be a luddite, as my cell phone is still dumb and I'm not
a twit (don't tweet). My Face is not in a book that's not made of paper
either and I email far more than I text (OMG, LOL). But apparently
society marches on to it's cyber drummer with me in it's virtual dust.
--
Sincerely,
Jim Ryan
Saint Paul's Westside
----
One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man
and Nature shall not be broken. - Leo Tolstoy
A well governed appetite is the greater part of liberty. - Lucius
Annaeus Seneca
----
On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 10:19 AM, Chris Fagyal wrote:
I'd actually be inclined to believe most Mou members don't use
ebird. For example, I haven't lived in Minnesota since Oct of 2009,
but I'm still number three for lifetime ebird list in Minnesota with
only 311. If one looks at the moumn listing page there are well over
150 people on the 300 club. It pains me to see so many people not
utilizing such an awesome resource. It makes things easier for the
listers (especially county listers) and it helps to grow the
understanding of Minnesota's birds. With the various cool new iOS and
android apps, submitting checklists can even be done in the field while
birding!
Ebird provides excellent tools for looking at distribution bar graphs
by state, county or even location so one can see which birds are most
likely at a given time of year. A great tool for looking at species
arrivals during migration to know what is expected to be showing up. I
use them all the time to try to understand arrival dates in Kansas as I
continue to learn here in my new home.
It's also very easy to import sightings from things like avisys or
birders diary. If anyone would like help doing so I'd gladly offer
some assistance. It only took me a few days to take sightings from
five countries and ten years worth of data when I did so last year when
Ebird went global. I haven't even used my listing software since
because ebird does what I want so well.
Cheers,
Chris Fagyal
Jonathon Jongsma wrote:
On Mon, 2012-04-02 at 09:17 -0500, linda whyte wrote:
too. Finally, I suspect that many MOU folks are e-bird users and figure
that's all they need do to share.
This is certainly possible (I admit that I feel this way sometimes), but
it doesn't really explain the difference between Wisconsin and Minnesota
mailing lists. Wisconsin birders submit *far* more ebird reports than
Minnesota birders do, and yet apparently their mailing list is also more
active.
And since I'm writing anyway, I saw a Vesper Sparrow and 2 Yellow-rumped
Warblers at Powderhorn Park in Minneapolis this morning.
Jonathon
----
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Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
----
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