[texbirds] Re: Bird question
- From: Laurie Foss <lauriefoss@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: jim.sinclair@xxxxxxxxx, Chuck Sexton <gcwarbler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 09:04:42 -0500
Jim,
I am an unapologetic eBird user, and take every opportunity to recommend
that others use it as well. The reason? Where is the insight to your data
at the microhabitat level? Can I see it? Can it be included in research
that might benefit from your data? Would scientists even know that you are
recording microhabitat data?
While eBird does not claim to be everything for everyone, it has done at
least as much to collect data for general knowledge and scientific use as
all of the notebooks on all of the shelves in all of the homes of
birders/ornithologists the world over, and maybe more.
Furthermore, by being available to the public, it generates curiosity which
in turn promotes efforts to look further, probe deeper, learn more about
birds and what we can to to promote habitat protection. I've seen it work.
My friend Chuck Sexton has a lifetime of field observations in carefully
curated notebooks on his home bookshelves. I've seen the covers, but never
the contents. The difference here is that he is taking the time to share
his observations by entering them in eBird, where now they matter to the
global understanding of avian status and distribution over time. What a
tedious job, but I admire him all the more for it.
I get that you're not saying eBird is not valuable. I get that your
sightings are important, too. My point is that if the sightings are not
accessible to researchers, they are making no difference at all.
Laurie Foss
Austin, TX
Laurie Foss
Austin, TX
On Thu, Aug 21, 2014 at 8:38 AM, Jim Sinclair <jim.sinclair@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> This thread highlights a situation that causes me concern.
> We live in an increasingly digitized world, where 'everything' is on line.
>
> There is hardly a month that goes by without the announcement of some new
> 'discovery' in the field of science. Even with my limited knowledge of the
> overall field of biology, I do, apparently, have one advantage - age. I
> see these announcements and immediately wonder why the researchers involved
> did not do their proper background research. The answer is, apparently,
> that many modern researchers do not read the old paper journals.
>
> That's right, folks. Not everything is on line, although Google is to be
> commended for the ongoing effort to digitize all of those old journals.
>
> For example, I have seen articles on newly 'discovered' chimpanzee behavior
> that Jane Goodall documented decades ago.
>
> eBird is a great tool, and meets the needs of thousands of individual
> birders. The data it contains are of great value in detecting and
> evaluating macrolevel changes. But it is missing a critical component in
> that it does NOT accommodate entering data that reflects the microhabitats
> that are crucial to a number of species across the board, including birds.
>
> Please don't misunderstand here. I am not proposing that eBird should
> address microhabitats - that is not its function. (And, no, the ability to
> create 'hot spots' does NOT address the microhabitat issue.) I am also not
> criticizing anyone for the manner in which they keep their personal
> records. Backyard birder data will always be of value when evaluating
> landscape scale changes in avian distribution.
>
> But, as humans continue to encroach on sensitive species, knowledge of
> those species' microhabitats becomes increasingly important. My concern is
> that we are possibly losing valuable information by innocently limiting the
> ability to collect and document peripheral data
>
> I do not put myself in the same league as many of the well know
> ornithologists who continue to hang out here. But I do record many of my
> sightings (not just birds) to a microhabitat level. I have more than 1300
> specific locations for my Texas sightings, most of them nested. For
> example, I have a number of individual oak mottes identified, a number of
> individual playas identified, and a number of individual stream locations
> identified.
>
> I can easily extract my data for an individual oak motte, or for all oak
> mottes combined, or for just those oak mottes in Kenedy County, or just
> those oak mottes for the King Ranch (in multiple counties). That is the
> nested aspect that eBird cannot support. It has no mechanism for examining
> a combined data set from geographically disjunct but biologically similar
> locations. And I only have to enter the data for the individual oak
> motte.
>
> I cannot enter my data in that manner with eBird. And I don't have the
> time to try to maintain two separate databases.
>
> Are all of my data that precise? Of course not. But the more unusual
> species are.
>
> Many of the old timers like Brush Freeman have handwritten notes of such
> locations. That information increases in importance as we continue to
> encroach on the wilderness around us.
>
> In my opinion, the more enthusiastically we embrace a particular
> technology, the more likely we are to innocently exclude peripheral but
> vital information that the embraced technology excludes.
>
> I'm wearing my virtual body armor;-)
>
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 6:03 PM, Clay Taylor <
> Clay.Taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
> > Ok, from a practical standpoint with respect to eBird, if you know a trip
> > list in 1970-something was from The Valley (it includes Olive Sparrow,
> > Green Jay, or whatever), does it really make any difference if you simply
> > pick a county? On that example, Hildago and Cameron host 95% of the
> > birding activities for The Valley - pick one.
> >
> > At best the list only shows the presence of the species. With very few
> > other lists in the database from that time frame, no meaningful
> conclusions
> > can be drawn as to trends other than the species was present / not
> present
> > at that time of year.
> >
> > Whether it is ultimately valuable enough to justify your spending the
> time
> > to enter it into eBird is a personal call. I have always been a
> > non-record-keeping birder, so I would only have to worry about where and
> > when a particular bird photo was taken.
> >
> > Clay Taylor
> > Calallen (Corpus Christi) TX
> > Clay.taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >
> > Sent from my iPad
> >
> > > On Aug 20, 2014, at 12:33 PM, "Brush Freeman" <brushfreeman@xxxxxxxxx>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > Oh well...The statewide level entries have no Ebird value and are not
> > used
> > > for anything, so I guess it is not worth the effort. Thanks anyway.
> > > **********************************************************************
> > > Brush Freeman
> > > 503-551-5150 Cell
> > > 120 N. Red Bud Trail. Elgin, Tx. 78621
> > > http://texasnaturenotes.blogspot.com/
> > > Finca Alacranes., Utley,Texas
> > >
> > >
> > >> On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 10:39 AM, David Sarkozi <david@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> > wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Brush, I think you're stuck with entering them at the state level,
> > >> then perhaps putting "Valley Trip" in the comments for the trip. I
> > >> don't think state level birds go into the review queue anymore.
> > >>
> > >> On Tue, Aug 19, 2014 at 2:19 PM, Brush Freeman <
> brushfreeman@xxxxxxxxx>
> > >> wrote:
> > >>> I have notebooks full of trip lists of birds from various Texas trips
> > >> from
> > >>> across the state in the 70's- 90's prior to the old
> > Clearinghouse...Just
> > >>> notes saying Valley Trip, Panhandle Trip, Trans Pecos trip etc.
> > ..Problem
> > >>> is they are not county specific and may cover two to several
> counties,
> > by
> > >>> far most from the LRGV or UTC. How to I skip over the county thing
> to
> > >> get
> > >>> them into the system.? Some of these trips,especially in regards to
> > the
> > >>> Valley are foggy in my mind as there were just so many, although
> > reading
> > >> I
> > >>> remember the people I was with ...Just not where all the birds were
> > >> exactly.
> > >>>
> **********************************************************************
> > >>> Brush Freeman
> > >>> 503-551-5150 Cell
> > >>> 120 N. Red Bud Trail. Elgin, Tx. 78621
> > >>> http://texasnaturenotes.blogspot.com/
> > >>> Finca Alacranes., Utley,Texas
> > >>>
> > >>> Edit your Freelists account settings for TEXBIRDS at
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> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >> David Sarkozi
> > >> Houston, TX
> > >> (713) 412-4409 twitter ID dsarkozi
> > >>
> > >
> > >
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>
> --
> Jim Sinclair (TX-ESA)
> TOS Life Member
> Kingsville, TX
>
> "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of
> thinking we were at when we created them." - Albert Einstein
>
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