e-bird question

[tom none]

Does anyone know whether the photos used by e-bird for photo ID are vetted for accuracy or do they just depend on what the observer lists?

Thanks,

Tom Curtis

[James Ward]

Hi Tom,

The reviewer for the County often checks photos for accuracy.  I know because Christian Nunes of Boulder is always sending me emails. ;-)

Jim Ward

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[Josh Bruening]

Tom,

If you are referring to the eBird/Merlin photo ID program, here is an article about that topic with a helpful link that goes much deeper into the process.

Merlin Photo ID : Help Center

Josh Bruening

Fort Collins

On Fri, Jan 16, 2026 at 12:21 PM tom none <jtcu...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Ann Chavtur]

The images are vetted by reviewers but also eBird has gotten a lot smarter. Late last year an update to eBird made a change such that eBird itself is checking the image for accuracy. On a safari trip to Africa our guide told us that  bird we spotted was a Northern Fiscal. When I uploaded my image to eBird, the app told me the image I uploaded was a different Fiscal. I was very surprised because I had not had that happen before. It was a pretty cool check and I got a new life bird in the process. Of course this only works if you have a good clear image where the bird is identifiable.  Since then I have had eBird flag an image after upload when I put the picture against the wrong bird in the list. It will even provide the button to move it to the correct bird in the list. (No more embarrassing emails when a reviewer points out you switched your Yellow Warbler and Yellow-rumped Warbler images on upload.)

Ann Chavtur

Monument

[tom none]

Thanks for the info.  The reason I asked is because I have a picture of a bird that gave me an unexpected result from the e-bird photo ID function.  I have been looking back at some of my pictures and remembered taking the picture below a couple of years ago.  Looking closely at the lighter colored dove (which at the time I assumed was a leucistic Eurasian collared dove), I am wondering whether it could be an African collard dove instead.  It has characteristics that support such an ID.  First, it obviously is lighter than a typical Eurasian collard dove, with little contrast between the primaries and overall body color. Second, it appears to be smaller headed than ECD (subjective assessment). Third, the mottled feather pattern is often present on [domesticated] ACD (see eBird Checklist S60518709 or eBird Checklist S75581900 ).  I examined pictures of African collared dove from areas of the world (New Zealand, sub-Saharan Africa, islands east of Madagascar, etc) that do not have any ECD records and found a number of pictures that match the present bird. Fourth, e-bird’s photo ID feature ID’ed it as an African collared dove. Finally, there are US e-bird records of ACD that predate ECD colonization in the east, and there are about 20 previous ACD records for the I-25 corridor.  I am not by any means saying that the bird is a natural vagrant, but rather descendant (or escapee) of a domesticated African collared dove (i.e., “Barbary dove”). Comments welcome.

Thanks,

Tom Curtis