As a follow-up to Brainard's post, one excellent feature of E-bird is it
allows you to sift through data to find records documented with photos
(sometimes incorrectly, for example, with those winter BWHA as mentioned,
but those can and should be corrected). If you look at Miss. Kite records
all-time, filtering for April only and clicking 'Explore Rich Media', only
records with photos or audio show up. This obviously greatly reduces the
dataset, but it does allow you to weed out a lot of noise. If you look at
this dataset, you realize that inland, eastern US early and mid-April
records just simply aren't there and thus, are extraordinary.
THIS is why these records shouldn't be brushed off as 'normal' and should
be documented, no matter who the observer is. Unexpected records
absolutely can happen, but they 'need' to be documented.
Mark
Mark Monroe
Louisville, KY
On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 9:44 PM <brainard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
By the way . . . particularly any visiting birder should expect queries
from local eBird reviewers. It is not an insult to be questioned about your
sightings, especially if you are in unfamiliar territory.
Relative to some of the discussion in a recent thread about eBird and
reliability of data sets . . . there are a number of reports in *every*
data set that represent errors. The trick is to try your best as a compiler
or reviewer to minimize these. It is both good and bad that eBird has
evolved into today's "trusted source" for bird data. There is certainly as
much good information in it as any single data source, but there are also
non-negligible number of reports that are false (some that have been
validated by reviewers, e.g. Mark Monroe's examples of Broad-winged Hawks a
few weeks ago).
Some of this is impossible to weed out like it is in any data set. But the
presence of errors is one reason why one should *never* utilize records in
a data source as "precedent" and validation for the presence of birds. For
example, this would be true for validation of early April reports of Miss.
Kite in KY based on previous "eBird reports." In my opinion, both early
April 2022 Miss. Kite reports in eBird in KY should have been documented
with photographs to be validated. That is not a knock on either observer; I
would have expected a reviewer to require that of *me* or *any* other
birder reporting one two weeks earlier than any previous KY spring record.
From 50 years of birding, I've seen most everything in terms of early
birds, late birds, high numbers, Asian vagrants . . . you name it. And I
also know things are changing due to shift in climate . . . but as Patti
Bell pointed out in a post about birding in Costa Rica recently, 99.9% of
Miss. Kites were heading north in Central America during the first two
weeks of April. So particularly with such outliers, it is no crime to
exclude reports with less than unequivocal documentation from a data set
that is going to sit there in perpetuity long after all of us are gone.
bpb, Louisvlle
-----Original Message-----
From: <gregory.l.walker@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Apr 21, 2022 5:46 PM
To: Carol Besse <csbesse@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: michael autin <mauniquity@xxxxxxxxx>, Asher Higgins <
asherhiggins91@xxxxxxxxx>, Sunil Thirkannad <drsuniltm@xxxxxxxxx>, BirdKY
Listserve <birdky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [birdky] Re: Phenomenal Birder !
Congrats to him! That appears to be the first record of grasshopper
sparrow at Hays / Garvin:-) He has a Merlin and a Vesper there too. What a
day!
I live 2.5 miles from Caperton Swamp and have 107 species there. Mr.
Huestis managed 8 that I have never seen over the last 7 years. I like to
assume positive intent, so I find these cases a very interesting puzzle. I
really would like to know what on earth is going on with this person!
Greg Walker
Louisville
On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 4:58 PM Carol Besse <csbesse@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
His eBird now says 2 hrs 20 min at Caperton. And now he’s found a
Grasshopper Sparrow at Garvin Brown!
Carol Besse
Louisville
{o,o}
/( _ )
" "
Sent from my iPad
On Apr 21, 2022, at 3:25 PM, michael autin <mauniquity@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Right place, right time, I guess. I haven't seen 40 species in 8 minutes
probably anywhere in my life, including southeast Asia.
Michael Autin
On Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 3:03 PM Asher Higgins <asherhiggins91@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I am impressed by your very gentle exposé of this checklist.
Asher Higgins
Casey Co. KY
On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 19:58 Sunil Thirkannad <
dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Wow...Phenomenal....!!!--
That's all I can say about a list posted today from Caperton Swamp by
Edward Huestis of Catonsville, Maryland.
I spent a good 1 hour there yesterday and only ended up with 18 species.
Edward Huestis spent 8 minutes at Caperton and listed 38 species
including American Black Duck, great horned owl, barred owl, yellow
throated vireo and 8 types of warblers including a worm eating warbler.
I have attached both Edward's and my list below for your reference.
Truly...I wish I had that kind of luck ...or birding skills !!
Sunil
Jeff Co.
My meagre offering: https://ebird.org/checklist/S107549189
Edward's list: eBird Checklist - 21 Apr 2022 - Caperton Swamp Park -
38 species <https://ebird.org/checklist/S107610229>
eBird Checklist - 21 Apr 2022 - Caperton Swamp Park - 38 species
Submitted by Edward Huestis.
Asher Higgins
