eBird app

[Susan Hunt]

I am having some problems with the updated eBird app--seems a lot less user-friendly than the previous version. It seems that you have to select the location after doing the list, which means the list of possible species isn't narrowed down for a specific location. Also, there's no way not to submit a list if -- for one reason or another (no birds!) -- you decide not to submit it. Other things also don't seem to work as well.

Is anyone else having these problems? Is there a work-around that I'm missing here?

Susan Hunt

Sligo Woods/Wheaton

[Kurt Schwarz]

Close the checklist and it will be saved. You can go back in and it will be there under checklists

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Kurt Schwarz
Ellicott City, Howard County
kurtschwarz4 at gmail dot com

[John McKitterick]

Susan:

You can select the appropriate location at any time once the checklist is up and running. At first, it will only have the lat-lon as the location, but if you click there you can replace lat-lon with the desired location -- a hotspot, for example, or a personal location. This does require being connected to a cell tower, of course. I have an Android phone; it may be different in the new IPhone version which is yet to appear (I think).

--John McKitterick

Columbia, MD

On Sun, Feb 16, 2020 at 12:40 PM 'Susan Hunt' via Maryland & DC Birding <mdbi...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

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[Marcia Watson]

I run eBird Mobile on an iPhone and just downloaded the latest update for eBird. It is as Susan reports. You are no longer forced to choose a location as the first step when starting a checklist. Instead, you have the “freedom to choose your location whenever convenient,” which could be at the beginning if you want. See screenshots attached -these are the welcome screens after installation of the new version.  The bigger change that I see is that eBird mobile now is running bird packs like Merlin does. You download the bird packs and this enables you to use eBird mobile in the field without an internet connection. There are bird packs for each of the 50 states and a long list of countries. The downside is that the bird packs take up space on the phone. 

Marcia

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Marcia Watson

Patuxent Bird Club

A Chapter of the Maryland Ornithological Society

https://patuxentbirdclub.org/

Bowie, Maryland

marsh...@comcast.net

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[Jim Nelson]

Susan,

I have an iPhone and my eBird app goes directly to the location screen when I hit the Start New Checklist. 

No birds is not a reason to get rid of a checklist.  If you were birding and found no birds, eBird still wants that checklist with the other data.  eBird will accept it if you click Submit.  (I just confirmed that by creating one for Hughes Polo Fields just  now and submitted it.)

In any event, if you are in a checklist you don't want to complete and submit, you should be able to click on the house icon on the lower left and return to the home screen.  If you then click on Checklists on the bottom, you will get your list of Not Submitted checklists and you should see that one at the top. If you then swipe left on that checklist, you will see a red Delete button appear.  Click that and then confirm that is what you want to do and it will be gone.

I hope this is helpful.

Jim Nelson

[Sarah Romero]

I’m pretty sure you need to re-login. On the main page, go to the bottom right settings cog wheel. Touch that. Then touch your account name. Then re-add your password. Close, re-open, all should be well. 

On Feb 16, 2020, at 12:40 PM, 'Susan Hunt' via Maryland & DC Birding <mdbi...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



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[Marcia Watson]

Jim, 

The newest version of eBird for iPhone that was released about a week ago xxis different. The little house icon that used to take you to the homescreen is gone. Instead you “hide” the current checklist that you’re running to reveal the home screen with links to checklists, trips, and my eBird. 

One weird thing is that in the new app version, if you delete a checklist that has already been submitted, it deletes it only from that device - the checklist remains in the eBird database. To get rid of it entirely, you have to log into eBird through the web (not the mobile app) and use “Manage My Checklists” to delete it. 

Susan,  From what I could see in playing around with the new version of the iPhone app today, even if you don’t choose a location for the checklist, the app drops a pin using your GPS location and the bird species list that is displayed is based on checklists in a 20x20 KM block around that GPS location. So it is tailored to your location even if you don’t say where you are.

Marcia

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Marcia Watson

Patuxent Bird Club

A Chapter of the Maryland Ornithological Society

https://patuxentbirdclub.org/

Bowie, Maryland

marsh...@comcast.net

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mdbirding/886142081.3877170.1581880760740%40mail.yahoo.com.

[JAMES SPEICHER]

Pencil and notebook works very well in the field and except for pencil
sharpening, never needs an upgrade.

Jim S

[John McKitterick]

True, paper and pencil don't ever need an upgrade, but it is impossible to aggregate those pieces of paper from all the many observers into a cohesive dataset that allows scientists to track the migrations of bird species through time and space across the continent and the world. Pencil and paper allow you to record your observations; eBird allows you to record and share your observations, so that your observations can be combined with others to form a moving picture of the world of birds.

The real question is: Why does one bird?

--John McKitterick

Columbia, MD

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[Georgia McDonald]

And a mechanical pencil eliminates the need for sharpening.

Georgia McDonald     Towson, Balt Co

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[Jim Nelson]

Marcia,

Thanks for the additional info.  After I read your first reply to Susan, I checked and found that my eBird app was not the updated version (I thought it updated automatically, but not big updates like this). I have now updated and see how the new version works.

The tip about Hide is useful.  I assumed "Hide" was to hide the checklist from eBird output, like for sensitive species or locations.

With respect to deleting checklists you have submitted through the app, even on the old version deleting a checklist only deleted it from the phone.  I have deleted them from my phone over time to save space on the phone, and they didn't delete from my checklists online. The reverse is also true, I did a dummy checklist on my phone today to test the new version of the app and then deleted it from my checklists online.  Even though it was gone, it was still on my phone, so I had to delete it there separately.  This means the checklists on your phone that have already been submitted are not synchronized with your checklists on eBird.

I also found that if you start a checklist and don't pick a specific location at the front end (using the pin icon at the top of the species screen), once you Stop and go the next screen (where you choose the type of checklist, number of people, etc., you are asked to choose a specific location, and if you hit Continue without doing so, it makes you do it before proceeding.

I think we'll get the hang of the new version pretty quickly.

[JAMES SPEICHER]

Pencil and paper in the field then eBird checklist at home.

eBird value can't be denied.

Technology overall while adding value sometimes, does not add value every time.

For the recently completed C&O count, one participant relied on the
eBird app in the field. At home the transfer was made to a computer &
checklist, but then that got deleted accidentally. With no paper
record, it seems the observations will be lost...waiting to hear.

BL, everybody's got to do what works best for them...

Jim S

On Sun, Feb 16, 2020 at 8:06 PM John McKitterick
<john.mck...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

[Bill Blauvelt]

Thaks for all the useful tips. I learned something from evey comment. Recently my app stop tracking my time and distance and I had no map of where I went. It turns out I had a setting set for ebird to track my location only while using the app. That sounded logical to me, but when I changed that to always allow, I got my time location and maps back.