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Hello all,
Having been alerted to this thread, I thought I'd jump in the discussion on=
eBird. For the many of you who may not know me, I'm one of the eBird Canad=
a leaders, mostly working behind the scenes. I've also been heavily involve=
d in the Maritimes Breeding Bird Atlas (data and web site manager, among ma=
ny other things), and I manage the data center at Bird Studies Canada.
I do completely agree with what several have said that eBird does require a=
little bit of commitment. It did take me a while early on to break my old =
habits of how I would keep records of my own sightings, but it has now beco=
me second nature. I also fully understand that if a majority of people are =
using a given tool, making a transition to something else faces a lot of in=
ertia, but the value of eBird really increases dramatically once you reach =
a certain level of participation.
There are many benefits to using eBird, undoubtedly. For your own sake (mai=
ntaining records of what you see), but also as a benefit to conservation. e=
Bird has arguably become the largest bird biodiversity database in the worl=
d. We've just exceeded 150 million occurrence records, and something like 1=
2 million hours of field work. To put things in perspective, the largest Ma=
ritimes bird project ever, the second Breeding Bird Atlas, has generated 13=
0,000 point count records and 273,000 breeding evidence records, over the c=
ourse of 5 intensive year of surveys. This is a lot, and the atlas serves a=
different and complementary purpose to eBird, but it is already slightly l=
ess than what has been submitted to eBird in the 3 Maritimes provinces so f=
ar (600,000). Just to give you a one example of the incredible power of the=
se observations when they are combined, I invite you to look at the followi=
ng animated maps (called STEM maps): http://ebird.org/content/ebird/occurre=
nce/. Cornell is currently in the process of creating these maps for the Am=
ericas for release at a later point, but there are obviously several gaps i=
n regions where eBird participation remains low, including in many places i=
n Canada.
As a person involved in eBird Canada, I'd certainly love to see it grow fur=
ther in Nova Scotia, but even more so as a user. eBird is an incredible sou=
rce of information for birders. The more observations we have, the better w=
e know about things like relative abundance, phenology, vagrancy patterns, =
etc.
Tracking rare birds is obviously what started this thread. I should point o=
ut that you can subscribe to email alerts in eBird, and automatically be in=
formed as soon as rare bird sightings (or birds that you still haven't seen=
in your area) are submitted. The alerts can also be embedded into other to=
ols, similarly to what I have done with my Birds of Qu=E9bec site: http://w=
ww.oiseauxqc.org/english.jsp, or using a tool like BirdTrax: http://ebird.o=
rg/content/ebird/news/birdtrax_20131101/. While I realize that Facebook is =
a good platform to quickly get the message out about rare birds, it also of=
fers little opportunity for record keeping in the long term, contrary to eB=
ird. And this is not to say that these are mutually exclusive approaches.
I think that Andy's suggestion to create an account for posting only rare r=
ecords on eBird is a reasonable approach, and this has been done in other r=
egions to help populate eBird with historical records or in countries where=
uptake has been slower.
Finally, for those of you who are interested, if you did point counts durin=
g the atlas, it is possible to retrieve those records from this site: http:=
//www.birdscanada.org/birdmon/default/ebird_export.jsp and upload them into=
your own eBird account. There are instructions available for how to upload=
your file if you follow the link on the page. I have been working on a new=
interface that will eventually simplify this process for people who also p=
articipate in Citizen science projects managed by Bird Studies Canada, but =
it won't be ready for another little while. Because breeding evidence recor=
ds often have not been associated with a precise date, I am currently not p=
roviding these records for eBird upload. For those who are really keen howe=
ver, I can provide a file with all your individual sightings from the atlas=
, from which you would have to figure out a date.
Anyway, this is not to say that everyone must use eBird, but this is just m=
y plea for getting more people excited about it. For those willing, you'll =
probably find quickly that you can get at least as much out of it than you =
need to put it, and probably a whole lot more.
All the best, and happy spring, for when it finally arrives!!
Denis Lepage
Denis Lepage dlepage@bsc-eoc.org
Senior Scientist, National Data Center
Bird Studies Canada
PO Box 160, Port Rowan, ON N0E 1M0
519-586-3531 x155
visit Avibase: http://avibase.bsc-eoc.org
eBird Canada http://ebird.ca/
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