eBird and biking: does one really need to split a checklist into tiny segments? (1 Viewer)

[LucaPCP]

I often bird while I bike; this enables me to cover large distances, and combines two of my favorite activities. For instance, on the shore, I often bike some 10Km while birding.

I have recently started recording my sightings with eBird, and eBird records my track while birding.

What I wish would be happening is that eBird, since it is already recording my track, would also keep record of where each bird has been seen, so that I can just keep birding while biking, and submit a single checklist.

What I fear is that eBird is dumb, and assumes that a checklist refers to one location only. As locations are closely spaced (~500m often!), eBird wishes me to start/stop a new checklist every time I bike a little bit.

Is my fear confirmed? Is the eBird app really so dumb?

And in that case, as I can hardly bear to start/stop a list every time I move 500m or so, what's the solution? Is there a way to put eBird into a mode "every bird is its own unit-length checklist"? Are there other apps that then send their data to eBird and that are a bit smarter?

 

[raymie]

I don’t really understand what you’re asking here, but the maximum amount of distance you are supposed to travel for one checklist is 5 miles.

 

[Ries]

I thought that the main disadvantage of eBird as well and returned to the app Obsmapp by observation.org

Different database but just saves each sighting by GPS coordinates, no checklists. The algoritm links the sighting's GPS to predetermined geographical areas (very diverse) which are all named so people can search such an area for sightings there.

 

[Vyomkesh]

You can still submit lists but I would submit an incomplete list.

We had a discussion in our Whatsapp group regarding this question. It would unnecessarily oversize the data.Also eBird is for population trends, frequency etc.

eBird recommends to keep your lists as short as possible. Try keeping at/under 500m but maximum is 8km.

 

[Vyomkesh]

You can still submit lists but I would submit an incomplete list.

We had a discussion in our Whatsapp group regarding this question. It would unnecessarily oversize the data.Also eBird is for population trends, frequency etc.

eBird recommends to keep your lists as short as possible. Try keeping at/under 500m but maximum is 8km.

8km should be unique distance (no overlapping)

 

[jurek]

Second about observation.org. It has advantages over eBird, for example you can add mammals, butterflies, dragonflies etc.

 

[Rolosama]

I don't believe the Obsmapp app by observation.org is used in North America ...?

 

[Ries]

Wouldn't know why not. It's usable in English and species databases for the whole world can be downloaded.

 

[Hauksen]

Hi,

You can still submit lists but I would submit an incomplete list.

We had a discussion in our Whatsapp group regarding this question. It would unnecessarily oversize the data.Also eBird is for population trends, frequency etc.

I believe the idea behind "complete" observation lists is that they allow far better conclusions about populations, habitats etc. than so called "random sightings". If I remember correctly, when I had a look at eBird a couple of years back, they stated pretty clearly that they considered random sightings a service for bird watchers, and observation lists the actually useful data. The German platform ornitho.de, according to talks given by the people responsible for running it, have a similar perspective on lists, though they don't state it as clearly as eBird, and the vast majority of the data on that platform does in fact consist of random sightings.

Regards,

Henning

 

[Ries]

How would you ever know if someone makes a "complete" observation list i.e. listing each and every bird (or other creature) they see/hear? Some will list each down to every sparrow or starling, an other might just list whatever he/her finds notable. On the observation sites that don't work with lists but, as you seem to call it, random sightings, all these sightings are grouped and linked to geographical areas, overall still giving conclusions about populations etc no matter that some list every single bird and other just a notable few. Sure, it would better if everybody would list everything, but can hardly enforce that wish.

 

[LucaPCP]

You can still submit lists but I would submit an incomplete list.

We had a discussion in our Whatsapp group regarding this question. It would unnecessarily oversize the data.Also eBird is for population trends, frequency etc.

eBird recommends to keep your lists as short as possible. Try keeping at/under 500m but maximum is 8km.

I do submit them as incomplete lists (there's no way I can be complete in submitting e.g. how many shorebirds I am seeing...).
But the fact is that when I bike 5 Km and back (for instance) on the shores of the Bay Area, that corresponds to many known eBird locations. Yet when biking, it is really rather inconvenient to start/stop checklists all the time, rather than simply keep birding -- especially because the app could very well, while recording the track, also annotate observations with gps coordinates.
For the moment, I am submitting such longer tracks, but I submit them not added to any known location, so at least they do not confuse that data. I hope that's

 

[LucaPCP]

How would you ever know if someone makes a "complete" observation list i.e. listing each and every bird (or other creature) they see/hear? Some will list each down to every sparrow or starling, an other might just list whatever he/her finds notable. On the observation sites that don't work with lists but, as you seem to call it, random sightings, all these sightings are grouped and linked to geographical areas, overall still giving conclusions about populations etc no matter that some list every single bird and other just a notable few. Sure, it would better if everybody would list everything, but can hardly enforce that wish.

Especially with shorebirds, I hardly ever mark the list as complete. I can count 12 Greater Yellowlegs, but then I see another group of them in the distance, and I cannot really stop and count how many there are there as well... then I see a whole flock of something else, I may mark 20 or 40 as a lower bound guess, but again no way I can count them all...
I typically mark complete only checklists when I bird on the hills. Even then, how many of those turkey vultures have I seen?
On average, I mark complete one in five of the lists I submit.

 

[LucaPCP]

Second about observation.org. It has advantages over eBird, for example you can add mammals, butterflies, dragonflies etc.

Is it by the same people who do the ObsAnd mapping app on top of OpenStreetMap? I will give it a try. Presumably one can then export and import into eBird if one wants.

The other app I was using is just... my Sibley app, which keeps a list that can be downloaded as a cvs, with lat long for each bird.

 

[raymie]

How would you ever know if someone makes a "complete" observation list i.e. listing each and every bird (or other creature) they see/hear? Some will list each down to every sparrow or starling, an other might just list whatever he/her finds notable. On the observation sites that don't work with lists but, as you seem to call it, random sightings, all these sightings are grouped and linked to geographical areas, overall still giving conclusions about populations etc no matter that some list every single bird and other just a notable few. Sure, it would better if everybody would list everything, but can hardly enforce that wish.

Because the site requires everyone to note if it's a complete checklist or just not. The majority of users do actually submit complete checklists. I use eBird all the time and highly recommend that anyone who doesn't use it should consider starting to submit their complete lists.

 

[jurek]

I honestly tried putting complete lists on ornitho, however I cross a 1km2 square within few minutes, and it is even walking quite slowly. So the idea of making lists which take at least 20 min or so is not very practical for an average birder. Maybe somebody standing with a scope along a shoreline. One usually cannot even walk around a normal 1km2 square on the map, because local roads are different.

This is the problem with both ebird and ornitho: they are ornithologist tools, who are poorly adapted to birdwatching reality. Ebird actually tried to use its records to calculate bird populations on the world - described in another thread - and failed.

 

[Ries]

Because the site requires everyone to note if it's a complete checklist or just not. The majority of users do actually submit complete checklists. I use eBird all the time and highly recommend that anyone who doesn't use it should consider starting to submit their complete lists.

"complete" is quite ambiguous then, isn't it. All about trust if a birder has listed every single species seen/heard. I've hardly ever done that because I rather watch at the birds themselves and through my bins than at my phone all the time, let alone list every general bird, that would pften be a day's task of its own. But many do, and count and list every duck and starling. To each his own. The algorithms make nice diagrams and stats of it all as a summarization. Official countings used by science are (also) done by birding organisations, like SOVON in The Netherlands, so I don't worry science won't get their numbers.

 

[Rolosama]

Because the site requires everyone to note if it's a complete checklist or just not. The majority of users do actually submit complete checklists. I use eBird all the time and highly recommend that anyone who doesn't use it should consider starting to submit their complete lists.

A "complete" list is understood in the sense of "all birds that have seen or heard to the best of your knowledge ..." two different orbservers will not have the same complete list.

 

[njlarsen]

Luca, with you submitting incomplete lists of your 10 km (or 10 miles, what ever) observation outings, I see no problem. It would be better if you stopped each time there was a new flock and really counted them and you were able to submit complete lists, but second best also works.

Regarding how to keep track of how many TVs you see: change the view in the app to show species already observed. When you tap on the left of the name it adds one more to your total.

Niels

 

[THE_FERN]

Because the site requires everyone to note if it's a complete checklist or just not. The majority of users do actually submit complete checklists. I use eBird all the time and highly recommend that anyone who doesn't use it should consider starting to submit their complete lists.

Umm error yeah. And as per another recent thread, I wish the submission process wasn't so super tedious...

(I also wish they'd open up their app code [which would help] but one can dream...)

 

[THE_FERN]

I honestly tried putting complete lists on ornitho, however I cross a 1km2 square within few minutes, and it is even walking quite slowly. So the idea of making lists which take at least 20 min or so is not very practical for an average birder. Maybe somebody standing with a scope along a shoreline. One usually cannot even walk around a normal 1km2 square on the map, because local roads are different.

This is the problem with both ebird and ornitho: they are ornithologist tools, who are poorly adapted to birdwatching reality. Ebird actually tried to use its records to calculate bird populations on the world - described in another thread - and failed.

Well the dream for me is something which records exactly what I see where (precisely) I see it. If I then want to tag a string of observations as a "trip" so be it. Perhaps obsmap does (some) of this..?