I am not sure my common species, one hour walks, are much in scientific data,
or even of any use to the recreational birder. Not sure how the information can
be used with the unknown factors (knowledge, eyesight, hearing (I SAID
HEARING), pishing or bird calls used, etc). Ebird works best for the
recreational chaser to know where something is being seen. I suspect, even with
some sort of filtering, scientific analysis is vague.
Is there a bigfoot sighting list serve?
From: birdky-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:birdky-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On ;
Behalf Of B Jenkins
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2019 3:03 PM
To: BIRDKY <birdky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; brainard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [birdky] Re: Fw: Re: ebird challenge
Ebird does NOT want just the "significant" sightings. They want them all.
That's why they encourage at least 15 minutes at a time and to break longer
time periods into shorter segments. Ebird is all about data collection by
"field scientists". If we skew what is reported, then the resulting data is
also skewed.
Emails, such as this one, are geared more for the unusual sightings.
Enjoy!
Barbara
On Wednesday, January 2, 2019, 11:28:20 AM EST,
brainard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:brainard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<brainard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:brainard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Frank and all,
Certainly there is merit to the type of effort that you describe; the lists I'm
talking about are the "complete" checklists that people enter into eBird
containing from one to several species that are based on totally random
observations during random efforts of one to several minutes, mostly common
birds, that do nothing but gum up the presentation of more significant data.
eBird routines are probably able to sort through and toss aside or place proper
lack of emphasis on those lists, but they make it cumbersome for many other
reviews of the data set. There is nothing wrong with data entry of just common
birds, either, but the efforts should be based on some sort of actual "effort"
to do a decent job of surveying the birds.
I simply believe the eBird team would serve their purpose better by advocating
something other than casual entry of data into eBird . . . their "complete list
every day" does not promote the type of data entry that is useful, to me.
bpb, Louisville
-----Original Message-----
From: Lyneart
Sent: Jan 2, 2019 11:16 AM
To: Roseanna Denton
Cc: BirdKY
Subject: [birdky] Re: Fw: Re: ebird challenge
Roseanna,
Don’t worry, pooh poohing isn’t going to deflect me from my effort to post a
daily list. I can see with a mere 2 days of reporting how a daily list can be
useful. I saw 22 species yesterday and 20 today, but today’s list included 4
species not seen yesterday. Each daily list will be about the same as the
previous day’s list, but overall species will accumulate through the year and
bar charts will show relative abundance and timing of arrival & departures.
Whether or not this additional data will be useful to others, it will be useful
to me to be able to see my own bar charts accurately reflecting what I see
throughout the year. Ebird has bar charts & other data sets for each user's
birding in each location.
Frank Lyne
frank@xxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:frank@xxxxxxxxxxx> - near Dot in Logan County, KY
On Jan 2, 2019, at 9:32 AM, Roseanna Denton
<roseannamd@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:roseannamd@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
As someone who doesn't consider any bird species insignificant; I couldn't
disagree more. Daily lists can tell eBird researchers a lot about bird
movements. When they migrate in or out and move around. What habitats supports
the most and types of species and numbers and what time of year. I don't know
all the important ways eBird researchers use the data, but I trust if they ask
for this data it's useful to them.
Roseanna Denton
Science Hill
On Wed, Jan 2, 2019 at 8:29 AM
<brainard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:brainard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
I will probably receive some "heat" for this response, but to me the "complete
checklist *every* day" challenge in eBird does not accomplish much other than
add "clutter" to the database. It results in countless meaningless, redundant
and often insignificant lists in eBird . . .
As someone hoping that eBird can become what Cornell and all interested in
conservation of birds would want -- a permanent repository for meaningful bird
data that can be used for significant conservation efforts and a data set of
record -- I would *much* more prefer to see *everyone* enter all of their *more
significant* birding efforts and bird sightings into eBird.
I would propose a different challenge ... during 2019, try to get some of your
more interesting historical information into eBird -- *and* -- try to convince
someone who birds but does not use eBird to start entering meaningful data ...
an unnamed independent businessman here in Louisville will be my target of the
latter ...
bpb, Louisville
-----Original Message-----NOTES TO SUBSCRIBERS
From: Lyneart <lyneart@xxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:lyneart@xxxxxxxxxxx>>
Sent: Jan 1, 2019 6:34 AM
To: BirdKY <birdky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:birdky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
Subject: [birdky] ebird challenge
Ebird is always challenging users to submit one check list a day for a whole
year to have a chance to win a pair of expensive binoculars. The slight
chance of winning a pair of binoculars has never been enough to make me post
lists every day. However, in exploring data and looking at the bar charts for
the species seen on my place, I couldn’t help but notice seasonal gaps in
lots of species that are here all year. Going by my bar charts, one would
think nothing much stays on my farm during June, July and August. Those are
busy months for a farmer + I usually only report when my list includes at
least one observation that seems a little out of the ordinary to me. My New
Year’s resolution is to report on ebird every day. I’ll still report here on
Bird KY only when I imagine I have something slightly less mundane to report.
An aside on the thread posted by Brainard and Jackie Elmore - If I had
already been keeping daily lists so far this winter, Robins would have been
on them every day and the whole blackbird tribe would be absent most days.
That could change at any time.
Frank Lyne
frank@xxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:frank@xxxxxxxxxxx> - near Dot in Logan County, KY
================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBERS=============
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