[TN-Bird] eBird hotspots
- From: Carole Gobert <cpgobert@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Tennessee Bird List <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:23:37 -0500
Both Lake Tansi and Hiawatha Lake in Cumberland County have been approved as
eBird hotspots within the last week, the suggestions coming as a result of all
the birders traveling there to see the two Western Grebes at Lake Tansi and
then checking out the abundance of easily viewable waterfowl at nearby Hiawatha
Lake. For those of you who may have been submitting checklists from these two
locations all along but haven't submitted a hotspot suggestion for them, if you
want your checklists to be included in the new hotspots, you can merge your
personal locations with the hotspots by taking a few simple steps. The last
paragraph of this eBird bulletin explains the procedure:
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/new-location-management-tools-launched
The Lake Tansi hotspot is plotted in the center of the lake which is a
perfectly legitimate place for it to be as that is where most of the birds are
being seen. The Western Grebes were viewed by many from the marina which is on
private property and thus would not be an appropriate place to locate a public
hotspot. Another consideration is that Cornell prefers locations to be plotted
in the middle of a habitat rather than at the beginning or end, such as the
parking lot from which you begin a walk.
I chose these two examples because of all the recent interest in the Cumberland
County sites but similar situations exist in all parts of the state with new
hotspots being added all the time. A few examples of new hotspots are Whitetop
Creek Park in Northeast Tennessee, Reelfoot--Black Bayou WMA in west Tennessee,
and Paris Landing State Park and 2 or 3 shared locations at J. Percy Priest
Lake in middle Tennessee. When someone suggests a location as a hotspot and I
approve the suggestion, only that person's checklists will attach to the
hotspot until new checklists are entered for it or until eBirders who have been
entering checklists at a personal location at the same place merge their
personal locations with the hotspot. So if you are submitting a checklist for
a location you suspect should be a hotspot, rather than simply choosing from
your locations when entering the checklist, use the map feature to zoom in on
the area and see if perhaps it IS a hotspot now. Another way to check for
existing hotspots is to utilize the View and Explore Data feature and choose to
make a bar chart for a Tennessee Hotspot; this will pull up a list of all the
hotspots to choose from and you can see if your location is among them. When
doing this be aware that the location you are searching for may be a
sublocation of a larger site, e.g. Reelfoot, J. Percy Priest Lake, Great Smoky
Mountains NP, etc.
I think that some eBirders resist entering their data into hotspots because of
the way they organize their list of My eBird locations. They may want to group
all their locations in a particular area together and may give them a prefix
according to state or some other area. It is possible to do this with a shared
location (hotspot). You can always rename a location on your My eBird list by
clicking on the edit bar to the right of the location, entering the new name
and clicking rename. This will not change the name of the hotspot, only the
way it appears on your own list. You will not be able to merge or move a
shared location but you can rename it. You will also still be able to run the
same reports that you now can for all the locations on your My eBird list,
including shared locations, showing only your own checklist data at that
location.
Another eBird bullletin,
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/location_specificity ("Location, Location,
Location") is worth reading when deciding just where to place a location and
when it is appropriate to include it in a hotspot.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.
Carole Gobert, Tennessee eBird Hotspot Administrator, Knoxville, Knox COunty, TN
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