South Platte Rez county line and eBird

[Scott Somershoe]

All,
As there's been a lot of birding at S Platte Res over the last couple weeks, I thought I'd make a couple comments about where the county line is and how to properly report birds in eBird. 

See link below and zoom in on S Platte Res to see that the county line crosses the reservoir such that only the SW arm of the reservoir is in Jefferson Co. The majority of the reservoir is in Arapahoe Co. The county line does not run down the middle of the reservoir. 

http://maps.jeffco.us/

eBird: There is a hot spot for the SW Bay for reporting birds that occur on the Jeff Co side. And there's a hot spot for the Arapahoe side of the reservoir. Thanks Joe!

ABA and reporting rules: In terms of the recent rarities, especially the Yellow-billed Loon, this bird has apparently only been on the east side of the reservoir and thus only in Arapahoe. As far as I can tell it hasn't ventured into the southwest corner. Thus reporting the bird in Jefferson Co is inappropriate, if it was not physically in that southwest corner. 

ABA rule:

(1)The bird must have been within the prescribed area when encountered, and the encounter must have occurred within the prescribed time period. 

So standing in Jeff Co, seeing the loon in Arapahoe and reporting it in Jeff Co and/or reporting in both counties is inappropriate. Only reporting in Arapahoe is the way to go!

If you reported the loon in Jeff Co, I'd encourage you to remove that report. 

Thanks!

Scott Somershoe 

Jefferson, Arapahoe and Douglas Co eBird reviewer 

Sent from my iPhone

[mary...@comcast.net]

Just thought you might like to know, my ebird report of Jan. 6 at 12:05pm includes an observation of the yellow-billed loon in the southwest bay of South Platte Res. That is not a fake report in any way. I observed the bird in Arapahoe County for about 15 minutes. I then began walking back to the southwest corner of the reservoir as I had parked at that end. During the 15 or so minutes it took me to walk back to that corner, I stopped several times in order to keep track of where the loon was. I very quickly lost sight of it. Once I got well into Jefferson County, I stopped and set up my scope. I continued to look for the bird out in the main body of the reservoir for several minutes without any luck. After awhile, a photographer (with a very very large lens on his camera) who had been walking with me said there it is. I turned away from the main body of the reservoir and saw the yellow-billed loon over in the far southwest corner of the reservoir (and I mean way over in the corner) not more than 20 ft. from the shore. No scope needed to see this beautiful bird up close in Jeffco. Don't know about anybody else, but my report stands as posted in ebird!!!
Phil Lyon
Lakewood, CO

[Andrew Spencer]

Hi Scott and all,

About eBird lists and county lines, I'm pretty sure that you are supposed to submit the checklist reflecting where YOU were birding from, NOT where the bird was.  So if you were standing in JeffCo, you are supposed to submit the bird under a checklist from JeffCo, at least if you want to submit it as a complete list.  There's an entire page about this on eBird where you can read more:

http://help.ebird.org/customer/en/portal/articles/2238491-ebirding-along-county-state-and-country-borders

Now I just wish I was in CO looking at a Yellow-billed Loon!

Andrew Spencer

Ithaca, NY

[Aaron Yappert]

Hey all,

This is another great example where eBird reporting guidelines and ABA report guidelines don’t perfectly mesh. Strictly speaking, according to ABA guidelines Scott’s original post is correct. Standing in the SW corner of South Platte Res. and viewing the YBLO which is in the Arapahoe Co. portion of the res does not count as a Jefferson Co. bird. Anyone who keeps strict ABA county lists would need to walk to the Arapahoe Co. side of the reservoir or wait for the bird to move into the JeffCo side of the reservoir.

EBird isn’t necessarily focused on checklists as they pertain to geopolitical borders and the ABA guidelines as they pertain to said borders. The scientific data set that is eBird is intended to be analyzed with distance travelled, duration of observation, and number of observers in mind (assuming you report all observed birds (I.e. a complete checklist)). In this sense, eBird absolutely wants to know that you saw a YBLO from the SW corner of the reservoir, even if it’s in the Arapahoe Co. portion of the reservoir. By indicating a complete checklist you are affirming that you saw all birds that you reported and reported all birds that you saw from a given location and given distance travelled. This then becomes a valuable piece of information within the eBird data set. As Andrew noted, if you view the bird from the “wrong” side of the county line and want to preserve the integrity of your ABA county list on eBird, omit the YBLO but mark your checklist as incomplete.

Perhaps this is needlessly complicated but it’s one of many examples where ABA birding and citizen science birding butt heads. At the end of the day, we’re all lucky to see a darn good bird at a relatively close distance, which is all I could want.

Good birding,
Aaron Yappert
Boulder/Telluride