All The Times My eBird Observations Have Been Questioned by Reviewers

Misidentification is a sensitive topic for birders. Birding is a hobby with a heavy reliance on people's word, and if your word is wrong - or if you gain a reputation as someone whose word is wrong - it's not much fun.

But bird identification is hard! All these goddamn things look exactly alike, and they don't usually just sit there and let you look at them.  At the same time, thanks to online listservs, eBird and BirdLog, submitting sightings is easier than ever.  Beginning birders who could once work through their identifications at home in their own notebooks are now tempted with going "public" with their sightings, perhaps earlier than they should.

Birders are confronted with their own misidentifications most commonly through the dreaded "Question about your" emails from eBird reviewers. You hate to see one of these in your inbox. These'll come after you submit an atypical record to eBird but don't provide enough documentation (photos or notes) in the observation to satisfy the reviewer that you had the ID correct. It's not confrontational, but the burden is back on you to convince the person that you saw what you saw.

It's not pleasant when someone tells you that you're wrong. Some birders, I've heard, respond quite negatively to the idea - just the idea - that they were mistaken. We've all got reputations to maintain and self-confidence to massage.

But birders shouldn't be offended by eBird review emails. It's OK to be wrong, and you're not an idiot for misidentifying something. To try to help remove the stigma here, I want to show the world the lots of eBird review emails I've received, letting you know that even a birder who writes on THE INTERNET makes mistakes.

My Report: 3 Cassin's Finches, Lane, Oregon - Feb. 27, 2009
The Problem?: Birders need to be extra careful when they're traveling. I was in Oregon for the first time, and just assumed that all the reddish finches would be Cassin's, because I thought of them as the "Western" finch. I didn't look closely enough, and didn't realize that Cassin's were "exceptionally rare" (reviewer's words) at the elevation I was at.
Was I wrong?: Yeah probably.

My Report: 1 Nashville Warbler, Violette's Lock, MD, April 23, 2006
The Problem: April 23 is a pretty early date for Nashvilles on the East Coast, but I didn't know that, and didn't take any field notes.
Was I wrong?: I don't know

My Report: 1 Say's Phoebe, Lane, Oregon - Feb. 28, 2009
The Problem?: Another example of not being aware of the particulars in a new spot. This is an early date for Say's at this location. However, this was I think my first Say's, and I remember looking carefully. The reviewer said it's not too uncommon to have early birds here, and I think the observation was accepted.
Was I wrong?: No, I don't think so

My Report: 2 Black Vultures, Washington, Illinois - April 9, 2011
The Problem?: It helps to bird with other birders. These birds were not particularly rare at this location, and we both remembered seeing them clearly.
Was I wrong?: Nah.

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The Time My Scientist Cousin Randomly Texted Me A First State Record

I live somewhat vicariously through my cousin, who had the good sense to pursue ornithology.  I'll be  sitting at my dumb desk on some sunny day, feeling myself get old and fat, and then she'll post some pictures of herself out in the field banding birds and smiling and, man, I tell ya, it's really just enough to make a guy go crazy.

Anyway, she's been working in Mississippi for the past couple of years but she's coming to DC and we've made plans to hang out. We were texting back and forth about it and she - impromptu of nothing other than a shared love of birds - sent me a picture of a yellow-rumped warbler. But not just any yellow-rumped warbler:

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Interesting Historical eBird Checklists

I love looking at old eBird records to see weird records or historical distribution patterns.  I've uncovered some really unusual old checklists during the course of some recent research.  I've taken screenshots of the most interesting ones, click to embiggen.

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Nick's Paradise

One of my favorite things about birding in Mississippi was that there are so few other birders around.  Every time I went out - especially into the Delta - I felt like James Audubon, ready to discover some new species or hotspot.  The east side of Mississippi is still unbelievably underbirded.

The lack of known birding spots in the Delta, along with the fact that I am friends with the state eBird reviewer, mean that I had a lot of sway when it comes to suggesting new hotspots.  I named one after myself, thereby ensuring ornithological glory for the eternity.

Next time you're in Tunica, follow the dirt road over the levee behind the Hollywood Casino and find yourself on the banks of the mighty Mississippi, in Nick's Paradise.  Tell me how you did. 

 



How To Make A "Where I've Birded" Map Using Your eBird Data

I've always wanted a map showing just the areas I've birded, but didn't know how to get one.  LONG STORY SHORT: I figured it out.  Check it:

Click on it to make it better (but remember this is just a screenshot, not the interactive Google Map that is actually is).

Want one?  Here's what I did:

1. Go to eBird > My eBird > Manage My Locations
2. Make sure you hit "Show All" in the lower right so all of your locations are on one page
3. Select all the text, and copy it into an Excel spreadsheet
4. Delete the "in my locs?" "Type" and "# checklists" columns (and any other stray stuff that got in there).
5. Make sure you have "Location" "Country" "State/Province" and "County" as Row 1 in your spreadsheet, or else insert a new column and add them.  It'll look something like this:
   
   
6. Go to www.BatchGeo.com
7. Copy your spreadsheet into the big "paste here" box at the BatchGeo homepage.
8. Go to Validate & Set Options > Advanced Options and make sure that "Enable clustering for high density markers" is NOT checked.
9. Make the map!  Check it out!

It's pretty cool to see where you've been spending all your birding time (and where you haven't been).  The maps isn't foolproof, and I'm still working out some of the details stemming from oddly-named or inputted eBird checklists (i.e. Washington County, IL shows on the map as Washington, IL - a very different part of the state).  I'm sure you can do a better job than I have, but it's a great way to visualize your birding.

Interview with Brian Sullivan of eBird

I'm ashamed of the pun, but eBird kills two birds with one stone.  On the one hand are birders who are tired of keeping complicated lists of their sightings, and are looking to simplify.  On the other hand are scientists that are frustrated with extrapolating bird population data from banding stations and estimations and are looking for more complete data. 

This is where eBird comes in.  In addition to providing birders with a format to track and manage their lists and observations, it also allows scientists access to vast amounts of continent-wide data on bird populations.  After starting slowly, eBird now records millions of individual sightings each year.  In addition to being a great success story in the citizen science movement, eBird has become an indispensable tool for many birders, including myself.  

And guess what: there's a new version in the works.  I recently talked with Brian Sullivan, one of the three guys in charge of eBird, about the site's past, present and future.

Birdist: Let's start out by talking a little bit about your role, and the history of eBird.

Brian Sullivan: Well, eBird was launched in 2002 by the Lab and Audubon as a joint project, and the goal was generally to harness the power of the observations of birders, and put them into an archive where they could be used and accessed by scientists and conservationists.  So, that was sort of the overarching goal.  Internally, our big hypothesis was that observations made by birders could be used by scientists for scientific purposes, and we're still in the process of proving that, because eBird is relatively young.  You know, birders have collected data and made huge contributions to our knowledge of ornithology from the start, and this was sort of a no-brainer idea in terms of pulling all that data together into one useful format.

And so on your end, on the science end, it's very useful in terms of gathering data and those things.  On my end, as a casual birder, it's very useful as a way to keep track of what I'm doing and what I'm seeing.  So, when you guys started it up, did you really start from the scientific end of things or did you also think that this would be something that casual birders are going to need to keep track of their sightings?

Well, when eBird was first launched, it was built by scientists, for scientists.  It was less birder-friendly than it is now.  And that was fine, and a certain number of people will participate when they just want to contribute their data for the good of science and conservation and things like that.  The flaw was that there was no reward to the user back at the beginning.  So, basically you submitted your data into the vacuum and it was sucked in and put together with everyone elses, but you didn't get any reward back, even simple things like keeping a life-list, and things like that.  

So we saw a decent amount of participation in the beginning, but then it plateaued.   In 2005, they brought in Steve Kelling, who is the Director of Information Science at the Lab, and John Fitzpatrick, the Lab Director, decided to come at it from a different perspective and try to hire some people who would turn eBird on its head, essentially, and develop it from a birding perspective.  So, late 2004, early 2005 they brought me and Chris Wood on to basically try to increase participation and redevelop eBird in a way that would be more widely used in the birding community.  Chris and I basically vied for the same job, and then they decided to hire both of us because our ideas were so similar about how to get eBird to get to the next level. 

The big piece that we brought in were some simple user rewards, like various lists that birders keep.  So, when you input data, it automatically updates your lists based on the location where you submitted your data, things like that.  Simple stuff.

Simple, but necessary.  For someone like me, who didn't have a long history of keeping records on paper, and had grown up being very comfortable with computers, eBird was a no-brainer.  I think the very first day I discovered eBird, which was the middle or end of 2005, I signed up and started inputting.  And so, if it was your intention to get people like me into eBird, it certainly worked.  

Yeah, our goal at that point was to make eBird a tool for birders that they would want to use and not feel like they had to use.  That was you begin create participation but also sustain participation because the people who use it, like it, and continue to use it.  And so that was the major change in 2005 that took us from, you know, three to five thousand checklists a month up into the thirty and forty thousand checklist a month range.  And its grown steadily since.  We've had some months with over one-hundred thousand checklists, which is over one million observations.  

So we're happy with that.  This nice thing about the growth is that it allows us to leverage more development, funding and personnel, to build Version Three.  Version Three is essentially going to continue with the same line of thinking that we had before, but we'll sort of beef it up a little bit so that birders have more control over how they want to keep their lists in eBird.  One of the big aspects that we're developing is the ability to build a community around birds, and open things up in a way so that it's less anonymous.  Birders love to be congratulated when they find a great bird, they love the reward they get for their hard work.  We're trying to figure out how to built mechanisms so that other users can give each other a pat on the back, and can also communicate with them when something is wrong.  

So are you looking toward social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace in terms of figuring out how these types of online communities operate or look?

Yeah, absolutely.  Facebook's a great model for how that would work.  At this point we're trying to figure out how to tie in to some of those community sites by, basically, bringing pieces of eBird out so they can be embedded into your Facebook page or things like that.  So, if you wanted to display your Maine list on your Facebook page you could put a little gadget into your page so people could see it.

Which is like the gadget I know of now, which is the pull-down menu by state, where you can see notable sightings broken down by state, correct?

Exactly.  We're trying to, with 3.0, built a very sophisticated home listing base, where you can enter data, manage your data, and manage your lists like you were never really able to before.  But also we're really interested in pushing eBird out to some of these other websites.  You know, when you're a birder you want people to see what you've reported, and you want to know what other people have seen.  So, we're trying to figure out ways to make that happen.  Say, like on Twitter, where you're following what a friend is doing, well maybe on your Facebook page you could set up a feed when you could follow some of your local Maine birding friends and see what they're reporting immediately, either on Facebook or Twitter or your cell-phone.  We're trying to make a more open atmosphere to eBird and also a more immediate atmosphere to it.  Now it takes a long time to get information back...birders want to know about a rare bird yesterday, not a couple of days from now.

If I was going to offer a suggestion for something I'd like to see in a new version, it would be better searching features.  One thing I sometimes do is sit around in Maine and plan trips for myself, or think about what birds I could see if I were somewhere else.  That involves looking at eBird and figuring out, you know, what birds I could see in Oregon in December.  Or April.  And that has been something that's been a little bit difficult to do on eBird.  Are you working on anything for Version Three in terms of searching?

Yeah, absolutely.  In the next few weeks, actually, we're going to put out a Google-map, where you will be able to search for a species and it will give you a Google-map of, say, California with all the reported sightings of a certain species.  Then you can click on those points and get data for each sighting.  That'll be a big step in the right direction in terms of data-out.

One of the other things we've talked about, that we'd really like to develop for Version Three, is, you know when you go the data entry and you get a Google-map and it's got all the hotspots on it?  Well we're thinking about turning that around and making it and input, so that you could go to a map of Oregon, click on a hotspot and then get all the barcharts with everybody's data together.  So if you clicked on a species there you might get the most recent sightings of that species at that hotspot.  That's what we're looking at in terms of hotspot output.

Those hotspots are recommended by users, right?  Then you guys go in and approve the ones that you agree are actually hotspots?  Because one of the other problems with searching is that people label different sites with different names.  So, when someone has seen a certain bird at, say, Bridge 4, it could be hard for me to tell what that location is if it's not a commonly-known hotspot.  Is that someone you guys could address?

Well, hotspots have always been sort of a thorn in our side.  The hotspot concept was essentially a "wiki" concept before "wikis" were even developed.  This was back in 2002, and the idea was that we would let the community create and define hotspots.  So we have this system in place where people can suggest hotspots, but we still have to manually approve them.  And that is a bit clunky.  One thing we have on the table, and I'm not sure it's going to happen in 3.0, is moving the entire hotspots process over into a wiki framework, where the users can provide information about hotspots and manage them.  All of the things we do now we would add to that mapping output.  

That would be helpful because hotspots are really something that is done on a local level.  If five or six people in Maine visit the same site, but call it something different, then the data doesn't back to you and doesn't get back to us as well as it could.  

Right, yeah, and we're painfully aware of issues with hotspots.  What we struggle with all the time is that we have a certain amount of time and resources we can put towards development and we have to prioritize what we think will give us the biggest bang for the buck.  Hotspots is definitely on the list, and it has been for some time, we just have to figure out how to tackle it the right way, and that is probably to put most of the work in the hands of the birders.  You know, birders are fanatical about their birding locations, and it would be an amazing resource to click on, you know, Higbee Beach in Cape May and figure out exactly where to go to find a certain species from the locals who bird there every day.  

Plus, it's really the only way you could do it.  You guys are good birders, but you can't be in every single spot.  If you want to make a comprehensive site, you have to leave it with locals, the people who know places the best.  Are there any other Version Three tricks up your sleeves?

Well we're planning on launching eBird worldwide for Version 3.0.  It'll be great because you could enter data from anywhere.  We get asked for that alot.  We're spending a lot of time and energy now to develop the network we'll need to launch worldwide.  It's going to be hard in some places.  The first step is just allowing people to enter data.  Then it's going to be...you know, the nice thing about eBird is that you can always re-run the data through finer filters.  So, the data in Bangladesh may not be squeaky-clean right off the bat, but when we have better filters we'll be able to reprocess that data through those filters to make sure they're good.  But the first step is to allow people to enter data so they have it on their lists.  

It takes awhile for any community to give polished data.  I remember when I started using eBird, I was putting all kinds of "Xs" and "sp." in, and I wasn't reporting all the birds...I think after awhile you learn the sort of etiquette of eBird, or simply which inputs produce the most useful results.  

That's interesting that you'd say that, that's something we're very interested in at eBird is knowing how eBird has changed the way people go birding.  We've always designed and developed eBird with that goal in mind.  We don't just want people to use it without learning anything.  We want them to know why it's important to report all birds, or to provide some effort information with your records.  It's great to hear that you learned those things without much prompting, really with just interaction with the program.

This goes to the question of, you know, eBird was started with scientific interests in mind, what have you learned in the five or six years that eBird has been around?

The amount of data we're collecting at this point - you know, eBird is a young project - but the amount of data we're collecting really allows us for the first time to look at the distribution and abundance and, sort of overall patterns and dynamics of bird populations at the continental scale.  We can start to look at the movements of Nashville Warblers all the way from their breeding grounds all the way down to their wintering grounds.  It's just amazing to look at an entire species' range as it shifts across the continent.  We're really excited about that.

Right now we have a group of scientists that the Cornell Computers Science Department that are using eBird data in a number of ways to try to model bird abundance at the daily level, on a continent scale.  It's pretty amazing.  They've actually succeeded in doing that for species like Tree Swallow and Eastern Pheobe, species where we have a lot of data.  The scientists are taking that data and tuning it up so we can start to look at some of the stuff for rarer species, obviously the goal being things like: what do these species need, where do they migrate, what is the connectivity look like between breeding grounds and wintering grounds in terms of habitat available, how do you prioritize conservation of those habitats?  Basically making models that help identify species-habitat relationships and fill gaps where there are huge bits of information that are lacking.  Like, where are LeConte's Sparrows during migration?  Where are they between Michigan and Mississippi?

I think that as we continue to collect data, and as birders continue to learn that providing effort-based information and giving checklists with complete species helps us in terms of analysis, we'll be able to learn even more.  Beyond eBirds organizational use as a database, which is great also for sort of the day-to-day record keeping on a regional scale, it's a great tool for organizing information for local journals, state journals and even national journals.  All of those things are being tied in now.  From an analysis standpoint, we're just at the tip of the iceburg with what we can do with the information.

On the same end, you've learned a lot about birds, have you learned anything about birders that you didn't expect? 

Well, Chris Wood and Marshall Iliff and I are what they call the "three-headed monster" that runs eBird now, and all three of us have been birding for a good portion of our lives.  We're pretty dialed in about what birders want.  I think some of the scientists at Cornell have learned a lot about birders by seeing the results we've got with eBird by making some simple tweaks that appeal to birders.  It's been a great learning process for citizen-science in general to learn that when you build a project you need to consider the needs of your audience instead of the needs of the scientists.  Or, I should say, as well as the needs of the scientists.   You need to not only develop a project that will gather useful data but it needs to be a project will result in some sort of useful reward for the user.  That's been the biggest thing that's been learned from this entire process, and I think a lot of citizen-science projects in the future will be based on that model.  ø

Interview With Norm Saunders

Anyone who uses a computer to find information on birds or birding (including reading this blog) owes a lot to Norm Saunders. For nearly 20 years Norm and his wife Fran have been dispensing information on bird sightings, trips and news in the DC area using digital technology. It all started in 1987 when Norm (I tried calling him Mr. Saunders but he wouldn't have it) created The Osprey's Nest (TON), a computer bulletin board system that allowed users to telephone in and listen to messages posted by other callers. It was the first system of its kind in the country dedicated to birding and began what must be called a revolution in birding, where sightings from all over the country can be shared almost instantly through a listserv like Norm's successor to TON, MDOsprey.
I recently asked Norm a few questions about the early days of digital birding, and what the use of digital technology has meant, and will mean, to birdwatching.

bDC: In terms of reporting and sharing sightings, what options were available to a DC-area birder in the days before the start of TON?

NS: There was always the MD Ornithological Society, with its many chapters (most of which maintain loosely-defined phone trees to notify folks of good sightings) and the Northern Virginia Chapter of the Virginia Society of Ornithology (ditto). But if you were a serious up-and-coming birder there was really only one source: the Audubon Naturalist Society’s Voice of the Naturalist.

When I was getting started in birding in 1981, Claudia Wilds was compiling and recording this tape. It was released at 10:00 am every Tuesday morning from Woodend, the ANS Headquarters in Bethesda. One had to make the call (usually more than once) and then take notes like crazy to make sure every last bit of information was wrung out of the week’s recording. Later, as I recall, Claudia had help from Erika Wilson (now retired and living in Arizona), and now a number of people still take on this burdensome task. It was *THE* way for birders who weren’t “connected” to get the necessary information about the really good sightings of the week.

Of course the very best way to get the timeliest information is to be part of the inner circle of birding. There is still a loosely-defined group of 25-30 birders who get the news before everyone else of a rare bird and who get invitations to see birds that are never reported in a public forum, usually because they are on private property or located where hordes of birders simply wouldn’t be welcomed. Most of the birders out there looking for news of good birds have neither the time nor the skills to penetrate this coterie. I suppose this group is necessary to insure that really rare birds get properly validated and recorded, but it’s a fact of life about birding that has never sat well with me and one of the primary reasons I got involved with providing a public birding forum.

bDC: So, once you recognized the need for a better system of reporting birds, how did you chose a computer bulletin board system (BBS)? Home computers and the internet were certainly not as prevalent as they are today, was finding a 'market' for TON a problem?

NS: Oh, that was the easy part. I'm an economist by trade and I always felt the best part about this job was the chance to fool around with the heavy iron of the big mainframes. So I was a sucker for personal computers when they first started appearing in the early 1980s. I wanted to know them inside and out and I wanted to push them to their limits. Shortly after buying my Kaypro II I read an article about BBS's where I could talk to other people and get free software and generally hang out with other computer weenies.

I had to teach myself enough Z80 assembly language to write a simple download routine for the Kaypro. That enabled me to get my first real communications package, and that opened up the whole world of bulletin boards. After a few years searching for other online birders, I realized that there were no birding-related bulletin boards (keep in mind that this was well before a viable, useful internet had arrived) so the idea of BEING the first hit me between the eyes like a freight train (how's that for a mixed metaphor?).

I wanted to aim at people from the DC area, primarily because it was a local call for them to reach The Osprey's Nest (TON), the bulletin board I began in 1987. Getting the word out was simple--I was a regular BBS'er on about 4 or 5 local bulletin boards, so I posted messages there letting people know about TON. I started to get new users almost immediately and by the end of the first few months we had about 50 or so periodic users. After that it grew slowly but steadily until we peaked out at about 150 or so local birders. Even though we had had over 2000 individuals call in from all over the U.S. to see what it was about, it wasn't practical for most of these folks to call often because of long-distance charges. This was the great limiting factor of BBS communications. Nonetheless, it gave a lot of locals a taste for what was possible. Many of these early subscribers remain my friends to this day!

bDC: For those of us who aren't familiar with a BBS, can you explain essentially how it worked?

NS: An individual would call the phone number (a dedicated telephone line) and my computer/modem would answer the phone and query the caller for their name and password. If they were a new user they would have to go through a registration phase where I gathered information about their name, address, phone, e-mail, etc. Once past the login process the user could elect to go to the message section of the bulletin board or to the files section.

The message section was a sequential set of messages posted by other users, just like a listserv, but without the re-distribution to all subscribers. People would post sightings reports, ask questions about equipment, flame some other user (which I tried to keep to a minimum), etc. You know, all the stuff that goes on in listservs and, I suppose, in blogs today.

The file section contained material I thought would be of interest to birders and other amateur naturalists. I posted weekly transcripts of the Voice of the Naturalist, of Armas Hill's Philadelphia Bird Line, of the weekly Cape May Bird Tape, etc. There was really quite an accumulation of freeware software, birding checklists, transcripts, and other goodies, including field trips scheduled from a variety of around-DC organizations, birding clubs, and the like. I put up most of this but a significant proportion came from users of the BBS.

bDC: The internet has allowed people who share an interest but live far apart to create a sense of community. TON and the listservs that came in its wake have certainly had the same effect. Do you think that birding is "better" now?

NS: Well, yes! We hear of sightings from around the state almost instantaneously now. We meet like-minded folks on-line and that leads to widespread networks of birders of all skill levels around the state. This mix of expertise flattens the learning curve and eases the formation of mentoring relationships. It is this mentoring which has led to the current bunch of "young Turks" now moving up the ladder to the top levels of birding in Maryland and elsewhere. People get over the many beginner's mistakes faster and amidst, generally, a supportive and well-informed commentary.

bDC: Are there people, perhaps from the group of elites you mentioned before, who don't approve of the access amateur birders have?

NS: There will always be a few, I suppose, who enjoy that sense of being in the inner sanctum and who resent the wide distribution bird sightings get today. I know a lot of birders in Maryland though and I can't really think of any who don't see forums such as MDOsprey as a tremendous boon to this insane fascination with birds that we share with each other.

bDC: Where do you see the future of digital birding?

NS: Cornell Labs and others are moving more toward online electronic reporting systems for their various citizen science exercises. To the extent that this gets more people involved and aware of environmental issues, I applaud their efforts. To the extent that people use this data to draw their own conclusions about birding issues, I am increasingly concerned.

However the use of electronic media evolves, though, it will continue to be with us and we should all work to make it a valuable adjunct to the spread of birding knowledge.

-originally published 4/5/2006