Reporting to COBirds (vs., say, eBird)

[Ted Floyd]

Hello, Birders.

Brandon Percival brings up an interesting point:

> When people submit sightings to e-bird from public birding
> locations, it would be good to also post the sighting to cobirds,
> or call the Colorado RBA.  Too many rare birds are reported
> to e-bird, that don't seem to make it to cobirds or the Colorado RBA. 
 

It's not just eBird. In this balkanized eWorld of ours, bird data are all over the place. I know many of you are members of CFO's Facebook group page, with discussion of, among other things, bird sightings that aren't being posted to COBirds. There are regional and continental online databases, such as The Natural Heritage Program's, with lots of bird sightings that are reported to neither COBirds nor eBird. There are also many local databases with great bird data; I can think of two for Boulder County alone. Some of these databases are getting into eBird (cf. DFO), but others aren't there yet (cf. Yampa Valley Birding Club). There's the West Slope Birding Network, of course. There's a nifty gadget on the CFO homepage that reports all eBird rarities, flagged as "validated" and "not [yet] validated". Etc., etc. And, ultimately, there's just good-ole-fashion word of mouth: Yesterday, I heard from a birder who's just not "plugged in" about a local rarity.

In other words, COBirds is one of, honestly, a dozen sources of bird info for me.

What to do?

I basically agree with Brandon: Post the data to your outlet of choice (Facebook, WSBN, eBird, wherever), AND ALSO let us know here on COBirds. For now, anyhow, COBirds seems to me to be the default archives for rare bird info in Colorado. Maybe, some day, when we all have AKN (the Avian Knowledge Network) electo-implanted into our brains, there won't be a need for COBirds. But cyber-birders of the sort I have in mind won't be reality until at least 2016... So, for now, I agree: cross-post all of it to COBirds.

Ted Floyd
tedfl...@hotmail.com
Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado

[Paul Hurtado]

On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 10:43 AM, Ted Floyd <tedfl...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> ...

> I basically agree with Brandon: Post the data to your outlet of choice (Facebook, WSBN, eBird, wherever), AND ALSO let us know here on COBirds. For now, anyhow, COBirds seems to me to be the default archives for rare bird info in Colorado. Maybe, some day, when we all have AKN (the Avian Knowledge Network) electo-implanted into our brains, there won't be a need for COBirds. But cyber-birders of the sort I have in mind won't be reality until at least 2016... So, for now, I agree: cross-post all of it to COBirds.
>
> Ted Floyd

I second Brandon and Ted in encouraging eBird users to also post their sightings to CoBirds.

To that end, I wanted 1) to mention two easy ways to send your eBird checklist(s) to COBirds, and 2) to make sure people knew about eBird Alerts:

Sharing eBird Checklists on COBirds:

1. Say you submitted multiple checklists for a birding trip. Simply copy the URLs for each checklists once they are entered into eBird, and including those URLs with a brief mention of your highlights in a post to COBirds.  You can copy those URLs to a draft email as you enter each list OR you can enter the checklists all first, then go find each URL by going into "My eBird" and then the "Manage My Observations" link on the right of that page.

Example: Here's a number of checklists noting a Common Nighthawk that has been roosting outside my office window (in Ohio):
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S10769187 (includes photo)
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S10777461 (includes a better photo)
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S10819210
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S11086874
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S11086886
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S11101017 (includes photo)
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S11101158
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S11137629

2. For single lists, you can do the same thing or you can email yourself a copy the checklist by clicking the "Email Yourself" button in the top right corner of the completed checklist page, then forward that to COBirds. Note the checklist comments (not to be confused with species comments) appear in this email, but are private when viewed by a third party on the eBird website! 

Example: The last (most recent) checklist on the above list, where I've left in the checklist comments (those comments aren't visible when you view this checklist on the eBird website) and have omitted some links in the species comments for readability:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:  <do-not...@ebird.org>
Date: Wed, Jul 11, 2012 at 3:25 PM
Subject: eBird Report - OSU--Jennings Hall Office, Jul 11, 2012
To: paul.j....@gmail.com

OSU--Jennings Hall Office, Franklin, US-OH
Jul 11, 2012 2:30 PM
Protocol: Incidental
Comments:     Observed outside my office window; top floor facing north. < - - NOTE THESE ARE (PRIVATE) COMMENTS
3 species

Common Nighthawk (Chordeiles minor)  1     Heard giving a single call from the large elm just north of Jennings Hall, the bird was seen roosting on the same branch as previously reported on 3 July 2012 (see this checklist for details: <a href="http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID&#61;S11101017"> http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID&#61;S11101017</a>).
Other checklists for this species at this location:
<a href="http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID&#61;S10769187">ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID&#61;S10769187</a>
...
<a href="http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID&#61;S11101158">ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID&#61;S11101158</a>
Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens)  1     Heard
House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus)  4     Small flyover group that included 2 adult males and 2 female/imm types.

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)

As you can see, just sending links/URLs plus mention of the highlights can be a bit easier on the eyes if you have a lot of comments.


Subscribing to eBird Alerts:

eBird will email you when someone reports a rarity or a bird you might need for a life or year list. Joyce T. could subscribe to the eBird Alert for Colorado rarities so that eBird-only rarity reports (as well as out of season reports, etc.) could be include in her RBA emails.  For more on eBird Alerts, see http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/subscribe-to-ebird-alerts or just go into "My eBird" then scroll down on the right and click "Manage my Alerts" and explore.

Good birding,
Paul Hurtado

PS: Remember that the "Share Checklist" button in eBird doesn't do any of this!  eBird users unfamiliar with what that "Share Checklist" button does should see http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/new-feature-ebird-checklist-sharing

[The "Nunn Guy"]

Is there an RSS feed of (all) Colorado eBird reports?

Thanks Gary Lefko, Nunn
http://coloradobirder.ning.com/

[Paul Hurtado]

Gary,

No RSS feed (that I know of) but check out the "BirdTrax Gadget" (free) that displays recent eBird sightings via either an iGoogle gadget or embedded in a webpage (e.g. it could be embedded in the CFO's website somewhere, or on your personal website). 

It shows either recently submitted checklists (just location and observer), recently reported rarities (with links to the associated checklist), or a list of all sightings (which I find pretty useless for large areas, but might be nice for county level monitoring). 

For details, see the links below:

http://www.nemesisbird.com/2012/07/birdtrax-a-new-ebird-tool-from-birdventure/
http://birdventure.blogspot.com/2012/07/introducing-birdtrax.html

Good birding,
Paul

[Robb Hinds]

For more of a DIY approach, check out Science Pipes. This provides some interesting tools for looking at eBird data.

 

http://sciencepipes.org/beta/home

 

Robb

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