Birding, eBird and eBird review(ers)

[Joey Kellner]

Time out everyone.  First of all, Happy Holidays to everyone!

We must have a LOT of newer birders in Colorado.  I say this because “back in the day”, we went birding for the fun of it and we called each other with our good bird sightings.  Sharing “our” good bird with others was enough “confirmation”, we did not need a “reviewer” to validate our birding abilities. 

Personally, when I find a bird that flags as rare, I document it such that an eBird reviewer (tomorrow, next year or next decade) will not need to contact me.  I attach photographs, sound recordings and/or write a detailed description OF THE BIRD (not that is flying, or that it is perched on a twig, but exactly what it looked like and how it might have differed from “the picture in the book”).  The description should be detailed enough that it stands the “test of time”.   A future researcher maybe 100 or 200 years from now (that has no idea what your birding skill-set was like) can also review your evidence and determine you saw what you said you saw.  Describe the bird and then eliminate similarly appearing species.  THEN, and here’s the MOST important part, DON’T LOOK BACK!   Move forward, get out for the joy and fun of birding, not because you NEED reassurance that you are a good birder or to see your name in “lights”, but because birding is FUN! 

As for the number of eBird reviewers, these are volunteers and finding people that have the historical background of Colorado (and county) birds, bird identification skills, a thick skin and WANT to do review is difficult.  In the past we’ve had reviewers that literally accepted just about EVERY bird (contrary to the evidence supplied)!   I (and likely eBird) would want reviewers that can scrutinize a record, make sure a more common species was not misidentified and ensure the data is as good as possible and that sometimes means not confirming some sightings.  Reviewers get burned out, some volunteering literally hundreds of hours a year doing eBird record and filter reviews.  Please don’t get mad at the people reviewing your records, it helps no one.  They get just as frustrated at us birders.  Birders that that don’t read the eBird rules and submit then 30-mile-long checklists, or create a checklist that follows a trail through three habitats in the course of 5 hours, or attach a photo to the wrong species.  It has GOT to be exhausting to be an eBird reviewer!  How many times have you said, “Thank you” to an eBird reviewer?  Then think how many times you’ve complained about them?  They are doing the best they can, trust me, I know many of them.  Better to just document the heck out of your rare bird, let the birding community know and move on to more birding fun!

Happy Holidays and I hope everyone can get out and see great birds in the new year!

Joey.

Joey Kellner

Littleton, Colorado

 

[Doug Ward]

Amen Joey, thank you for this post.  While I cannot speak for the creators of the amazing citizen science project that is eBird, I do not believe they intended the platform become a social media outlet which in some respects is the direction it has taken.  This is a tremendous resource of data, potentially a cornerstone of many bird conservation policies and actions, but it is just that, a database which is only as good as it’s data.  If I could wave a wand and eliminate the “Top 100s”, the various “Alerts”, and even inject a delay of weeks or months to when data posts to the public interface, I believe many of the unintended competitive consequences we’ve seen recently in birder behavior could be reduced and we can all get back to simply birding.

 

Full disclosure, I’ve been an eBird reviewer up in Wyoming for over 10 years and I can tell you first hand, the paucity of descriptive information provided by many users is striking.  The most important roll a reviewer can take is making sure the data housed on eBird’s servers is of as high a quality as possible at that time.  This means setting the filters that catch unusual sightings tight enough to reflect current understanding of populations, but loose enough to allow free flow of data when appropriate – this is a never ending evolutionary task.  And when a sighting gets flagged, rest assured it is in the system and will be reviewed at some point, but with review queues sometimes in the thousands it will take time.  If a sufficient description is provided, then the record will show up in the public data.  Remember your personal records will never change, and you can always access them via My eBird if you would like to look back and reflect.

 

So grab the binoculars, turn off the eBird app, and go find some of those Bohemian Waxwings that have showed up this year on your own, the rewards are far greater than simply chasing….then enter them into eBird in a week or two.  If you’d like to get word out about your Bohemians beyond your friends, I hear this “COBirds” thing is a great communication tool.

 

Far more important than my two bits here is wishing you all a Happy Holiday, Merry Christmas, and a prosperous New Year filled with lots of good birds.

 

Cheers,

Doug Ward

Denver (currently in snowy Idaho)

 

PS –Bohemians are weirdly nearly absent up here in North Idaho this year (usually in flocks of hundreds), so they must have followed the cold air your direction, so good luck when you head out!!

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[Doug Ward]

[Susan Rosine]

I would like to add some comments, since I started all this discussion.

I know eBird reviewers are volunteers, and they have a very hard and (usually) thankless job. I AM grateful for them. There are MANY who are willing to explain in detail why your sighting of one gull was really another gull (insert many laughing emojis here!). I've been birding for decades, and I learn new things constantly, and I love that!

It was only this year, and only in a few counties, that I noticed my rare bird sightings were going  largely unconfirmed. This is also the first year that I've heard private complaints from other eBirders.

When l started using eBird, it was very sporadic. Joe Roller was constantly encouraging me to use eBird all the time to get my data recorded for use by ornithologists, as well as fellow birders. I wonder what advice he would give us all now?

I wholeheartedly agree that birding should not be a competition. It HAS become that for some people, sometimes to the point of "not recording lists accurately",  to be very polite. I'm sure that is discouraging for reviewers. I no longer have my "ranking" on eBird public. I don't want anyone to think they have to "beat me". I don't need to "show off". 

My real concern is that reviewers are overworked,  getting burnt out, getting discouraged, or even just too busy with Life. I understand that completely. But how can we encourage more interest by well-qualified people to become eBird reviewers? We do want the data to be as accurate as it can be, knowing it can never be 100% correct. After all, a beginning birder could say they saw a flock of 30 American Robins, and miss the fact that five of them were Cedar Waxwings. Heck, ANYONE could make that "mistake". 

I also will admit I'm not always the best describer of my bird sightings, especially if I add photos. Why say "red macular" if the photo clearly shows that? But I could do better than just saying "Continuing" or "Photos". Describing the bird you see is a good practice to get in the habit of--and STAY in the habit. 

Those who know me, know that I do try and alert people via CoBird about a rare bird that I'm currently staring at, because I want to share the joy, NOT keep it a secret so that I can "win". It thrills me when people re-find a bird that I reported. 

Happy Holidays, and may you all see a Bohemian Waxwing,

Susan Rosine

Brighton, Adams County 

[John Malenich]

If you want to talk about ebird and "social media," it is ironic and truly notable how this entire discussion has taken a disappointing and sad "social media" turn.  Susan raised a legitimate issue in a respectful way in an appropriate forum, simply asking if more help was needed.  Yet the responses she got to her post were pretty harsh.  Calling out new birders and rolling out "back in the day" and the need for validation of birder abilities; accusations of birding not for fun, but confirmation and competitiveness; detailing one's best practices and how others just don't live up; calling for the elimination of useful aspects of ebird that nearly all of us use, including real time reports that allow many more folks to see rarities.  If you are really interested in having a discussion about social media, maybe look in the mirror just a bit at your own reaction to her post.  I know Susan well.  She is certainly not the stereotype of the competitive birder of which you speak, and she certainly did not deserve this kind of reaction for simply raising this issue.  Talk about social--or rather unsocial--media!!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!!

John Malenich

Boulder, CO   

[David Suddjian]

I serve both as an eBird reviewer and an addicted user.

I think a challenge arises when a county or region does not have someone who is actively reviewing all the records for that area. Then they sit in the queue, which can grow to 100s and 1000s. The user can't easily tell if a record was invalidated or is simply not reviewed. Communication is often lacking. The review queue soon grows very long and it is tedious and hard or nearly impossible for a reviewer to go back and clear out the backlog when new records keep coming in. Big backlogs are a problem, I think, as the data which should help define the filters - that which is popping the filters - is not reviewed maybe for a long time. 

I believe there are many capable birders who could review effectively in their familiar counties. JoAnn herself is a good one for Eagle, I'd say. The historical perspective is important, but most of the reviewing is of current records and such folks are often aware of the current status and distribution in their areas to catch something odd, and eBird data reveal the historical picture to a degree. Whether they would want to review for eBird, I couldn't say. But how much asking is happening? eBird's core data quality feature is its filters and the review process, and since birding and eBirding are growing, it seems the situation can only improve through having more people actively involved, and more communication. Now I'll go have fun birding :-) 

I will say thank you here to my home area eBird reviewer Scott Somershoe. I'm grateful to Scott for staying on top of things with the big review task here in the busily birded Denver Metro area. And thanks to all the hard working, labor-of-love (sort of) volunteer reviewers serving eBirders in Colorado.

David Suddjian

Ken Caryl Valley

Littelton, CO 

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[Buzz Schaumberg]

Thank you.


Sent from the all new Aol app for iOS

Buzz Schaumberg 

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[Diana Beatty]

How do people become eBird reviewers?  Are there a set number of positions per area? Do people apply? How can someone know if there is a need in their area?

Diana Beatty

El Paso County

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/CAGj6Roob%2BGMvkhqtOXZqMb6wBrpShi17ed9NR_ajOhyvhah02g%40mail.gmail.com.

[Patricia Cullen]

Happy Holidays to everyone!

I'll start by saying, as encouraged  by Joey Kellner's post --

In Boulder County we enjoy the rapid and accurate work of volunteer Christian Nunes, 

thank you Christian and I hope he will continue this service to the Colorado birding community,

as its helped make me a better birder. 

 Susan Rosine's and Diana Beatty's questions are important to consider.   I hope  Cornell/eBird can become more transparent in how they select eBird Reviewers

and allow more birders with the right number of years of experience and skills to apply.  Relying on the old boy network to identify the "right" candidates may not

be adequate.  Its a big birding world and many very capable birders are being overlooked as possible

reviewers today is likely.  

Its  quite accurate that many rural counties around the USA and the world,  there is great disparity in the number of reviewers for rural areas. 

In Ithaca NY in Tomkins County,   for an example , one will get a DETAILED response within TEN MINUTES of

entering a rare bird  species mistake,  (ask me how I know! ).  but for a rare data entry in  Huerfano County,  CO, if you do submit a photo, it 

may take years if it is  ever confirmed.      I have had solid intermediate birders in Boulder County discuss this with me  endlessly

and feel that maybe they should quit eBirding as they work hard to get an excellent photo of a rare bird, in a rural county, 

only to have that data "hidden" or "ignored"   for a long time, as there is no one to look at that fine photograph to confirm it.  

Note that one cannot  easily find unconfirmed rare bird photographs in eBird, without knowing the date, one of the observer's names,  and place of entry, then finding that list for

that person's name, by going to the hot spot and scrolling down to the right date, and only

if at least ONE observation is unique will that data/list appear, and then one

can click on he list DATE to pull it up, then voila the hidden photo is indeed there, so not hidden at all!  But hard to access. 

If its a private spot where the rare bird was found, I am not sure how to go about finding unconfirmed photos of rare birds,  and I enter data

into eBird every day now for over 500 days. 

Another aspect of eBird reviewing that is not always transparent is how one's number of eBird entries/year of birding  over time. 

affects what the reviewer may do!   More clarity  would help beginners to  understand the review process more thoroughly,

then they can respond appropriately, and not be afraid to enter rare bird data, given that data can be filtered out and checked

for accuracy in a number of ways.   

Some will say that allowing applications to become reviewers may dilute the skill level of this highly trained

team of birders, and, of course,  the accuracy of eBird, but I would argue that not only

will it NOT dilute the accuracy to have more timely attempts at review, it will IMPROVE birders at a more rapid

rate as they will learn a lot becoming an  eBird reviewer, and at least those clear Summer Tanager Photos in Huerfano will

get a glimpse sooner and may well be quite easy to confirm.   On the really tough IDs, with inadequate descriptions or blurry photos,

 its still a tall task for many reviewers today.  And like

any job, those not suited will probably resign, anyway, so its not likely to impact data quality to train

more volunteer reviewers.   

I will send my thoughts directly to Cornell/eBird once I refine them a bit more.  I welcome feedback about eBird, its purpose

and how accuracy is insured, by statistics, and by eBird reviewers, privately or on this public forum. 

Good birding, 

Patricia Cullen

Boulder County 

[David Suddjian]

I thought I'd share this simple screenshot of an eBird reviewer's dream. This is a review queue with no records unreviewed.  "Congratulations you have no more records to review."

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