[wisb] Re: E-bird question
- From: Nick Anich <nicka29@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wisbirdn <wisbirdn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2011 11:12:03 -0800 (PST)
For the "high counts" under "view and explore data", that only draws from
single checklists. When they first introduced it, they enforced a 5 mile
limit to be included in high counts, but they ended up dropping that. Right now
county-level submissions show up as high counts, though I know that it's
intended that high counts should represent counts at smaller locations,
not huge traveling counts (and if you submit a multi-county count under the
guise of a county-level or personal location-level checklist, we're going to
invalidate it). Anybody can tally 500 Ovenbirds if they want to spend the day
driving the north woods with their windows down, but I don't know what value
that is. It's not the same density and doesn't provide the same information as
knowing you had 50 Ovenbirds in a small city park.
Your 50 chickadees at 10 sites will be tallied as 500 chickadees if you view a
bar chart for the county, click the species name, and then go to the "totals"
graph.
As far as entering observations at various levels of specificity, eBird
strongly encourages people to report records at a fine scale if at all
possible. If you bird 5 hotspots in a day, it isn't that much work to keep
separate lists for each site as opposed to a day list, and the resulting
observations are more useful for anyone who wants to see where you had specific
birds.
County-level submissions are often better than nothing, but they aren't very
informative. At times, the eBird guys have considered blocking county-level
submissions from the viewable data, but for the moment they are still
allowed. County-level observations have their use, primarily if you're
entering old data without specific locations or if you drove all across a
county without stopping at specific hotspots or particular locations, or if
you've got a sensitive species you don't want to plot exactly (though
city-level can work for the latter too). If you're going to submit a
county-level checklist, please do so using the county rather than plotting a
location so it misleadingly looks like you were in a particular spot. In some
areas of the country, if you submit a county-level checklist that makes it look
like birds were in inappropriate habitat (e.g., seabirds plotting out far
inland) the local reviewers will invalidate it, but at this point if
you're using county-level checklists appropriately, we're allowing them.
The "patch" definition Mike is talking about is primarily in regard to rules
for the patch listing game. In general, smaller locations are better, when
feasible.
eBird has articles up on using locations:
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/location_specificity
and the high counts (and arrival, departures features):
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/modo-constituto-eu-sit
and many more articles like this can be found in the eBird news index:
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/about/ebird-news-index
Nick Anich
WI eBird
Ashland, WI
####################
You received this email because you are subscribed to the Wisconsin Birding
Network (Wisbirdn).
To UNSUBSCRIBE or SUBSCRIBE, use the Wisbirdn web interface at:
//www.freelists.org/list/wisbirdn
To set DIGEST or VACATION modes, use the Wisbirdn web interface at:
//www.freelists.org/list/wisbirdn
Visit Wisbirdn ARCHIVES at: //www.freelists.org/archives/wisbirdn
Other related posts:
