[texbirds] Re: Texas Century Club and (not vs.) eBird
- From: Brady Surber <supersurber@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: TexBirds TexBirds Posting <texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 24 May 2013 08:31:36 -0500
I when I finally started using ebird I too had a huge amount(15-20years) of
back records. Luckily for me, At some point pre-ebird I had the foresight to
make my own excel file with all records of everything I have ever seen. Ebird
can take uploaded excel files in a certain format and load the data that way
removing the need for every single checklist to be manually entered into
Ebird. Once this is done ebird asks you to show it where your different
locations in the spreadsheet are. It is much quicker to find 20,000 locations
on the ebird map then to enter each bird from 20,000 checklists. By doing this
and being sure to enter every list from whenever I go birding I am able to see
accurately, my county totals.
Brady Surber
Vernon, TX
> To: texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> From: gcwarbler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [texbirds] Texas Century Club and (not vs.) eBird
> Date: Thu, 23 May 2013 12:40:10 -0500
>
> TexBirders,
>
> At the risk of opening up a can of worms, I wanted to briefly explore
> the current relationship between TOS's Texas Century Club and eBird.
>
> In private email exchanges over the past weeks and months, it has
> come to my attention that some folks--including a few current or
> former TCC county editors--have been under the impression that eBird
> county totals are sufficient and appropriate for migrating to the TCC
> web pages.
>
> Nothing could be further from the truth, as I see it. For some
> (small?) portion of present-day and recently-inspired birders, the
> equation, "eBird totals = TCC totals" may hold true. I'm an active
> eBirder; every significant bird sighting I've made since I retired at
> the end of 2010 is in eBird. I'm happy to contribute to that
> database and it's fun to keep up with it. It's a great program,
> getting better by the day.
>
> However, for those of us who have been birding far longer than the
> life span of eBird, the accumulation of pre-eBird county records and
> lists can be very significant! IMHO, the latter are *also* very
> appropriate fodder for reporting in TCC totals, but we each will be
> differently inspired to begin the monumental task of entering old
> records into eBird.
>
> For just myself as one (data junky) example, along with a filing
> cabinet drawer full of loose notes and field checklists, I have over
> 70 hard-bound journals dating back to 1970, about 80% of which are
> packed with bird records. Those journals average up to 200 pages
> apiece, so we're talking about 14,000 pages of information to sift
> through. In fact, for TCC purposes, I *have* gone through that
> entire body of information to glean out my TCC county totals, which I
> keep in an Excel spreadsheet with the first date of a species in each
> county. That effort took the better part of 3 months to accomplish.
> I've also begun the much, much slower task of entering those early
> bird records into eBird, checklist by checklist. I'd estimate that
> the eBird entry of that old data will take many years if I can
> maintain the inspiration to continue the task. My TCC totals, if
> extracted *only* from eBird, will essentially never be complete or
> reliable.
>
> So I guess my point is that I encourage everyone to use and improve
> eBird with data entry and, for those so inclined, foreward your
> county totals to the appropriate TCC editors to see how we all match
> up. Both programs have materially enhanced our knowledge of Texas
> birds. But for those of us with massive accumulations of "pre-
> data" (i.e. pre-eBird), it should be kept in mind that eBird totals
> and true TCC accomplishments may never be anywhere close to equal.
>
> Chuck Sexton
> Austin, TX
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