Feral Pigeon

While searching for the rare Hudsonian Godwit at the San Diego River mouth, I photographed this common bird.

In January 2014 eBird changed the way these pigeons are reported. All populations in North and South America and Australia derived from feral stock. Thus, in eBird these are entered on your checklist as "Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)."

These doves in their native lands--and if showing the wild phenotype will be entered into eBird as Rock Dove (Wild Type). The native range is North Africa, the Middle East, southern Europe, and parts of southern Asia. The full announcement form 2014 is here.

Rock (Feral) Pigeon. Ocean Beach, California. June 1, 2019.

Fieldcraft: How to use and improve eBird Media Search bird photos

You may have noticed when I present some of my recent bird photos that I provide a link to eBird photos. You may just enjoy looking at bird photos, but these photos can help you improve as a birder. I also encourage rating those photos. Here is the why and how.

Why use eBird Media Search Tool?

eBird Media Search is an indispensable tool to help learn what local birds look like. What do I mean--what's wrong with a field guide?

The immediate example that comes to mind is a rare seabird to the West Coast of North America--Short-tailed Albatross. If you look at Sibley or the National Geographic guide, what do you see? In the recent versions (Editions 2 and 7, respectively), 5 or more illustrations of a giant white-and-black bird with golden head and big white wing patches (in older field guide versions only 1-2 illustrations of the adult, or just the head). However, the only place in North America you are likely to see this bird with any white on it at all is the Aleutians on special birding cruises. Only juvenile and birds less than 2 years old are found south of Alaska--all dark chocolatey brown. Take a look at the eBird photos from Oregon: here.

For a more recent example, there was a Chestnut-sided Warbler reported wintering not far from my home. What does it look like? Well, it happens to be a first-year female. It doesn't even have chestnut sides! But it does have a nice lime green crown and white eye ring. I knew exactly what to look for (now and in the future). See photos here.

Choose your location (or intended location, if planning a trip) and choose the month you will be there. See what the birds looks like at that time of year! If it is far away, you may not even recognize the common local Song Sparrows from that region!

How do you view the Media Search Tool?

Start at the eBird home page (www.ebird.org). Choose the Explore tab. Scroll down to the Search Photos and Sound link. This brings you to the eBird Media catalog of Macaulay Library. Ooh, 10 million bird photos... and growing!

We need to filter this.

1) First limit the location, say, to a county, perhaps San Diego, California (United States). You can limit it to as small as an eBird Hotspot or as large as the world.
2) Change the View Results icons from Gallery (default) to Grid. Now you can see the 5-star rating of each photo and other details.
3) Reorder the photos. There is a filter for Recently Uploaded (default), Best Quality, Least Rated, oldest, and newest. These reorder the photos in useful ways that I'll explain in a moment.

The world's highest rated photos in eBird. They're nice, but are they really the best? Over 200 ratings!

What do the Photo Ratings mean?

There is a 5-star rating system for the photos. eBird has a help file, but I tend to remember it this way:
1) Awful. There's a bird in that photo?
2) Poor photo (tiny, out-of-focus, more than half hidden)
3) Average point-and-shoot type photo, small in frame, slightly out-of-focus or partially hidden in foliage.
4) Very good, but not perfect. Often the bird is large and sharp, perhaps blocked by a small stick or cast with a harsh shadow, or the background is distracting.
5) Magazine cover quality. Sharply focused. Eye level. Frame-filling. Looking at the camera. No distracting shadows. Pleasantly blurred or non-distracting background.

Most of the photos in eBird are 3s and 4s. The only time anyone should put in a 1 is for documentation of a rare species. Okay, eBird tracks your photo list as it does your sightings list. Some people may enter a 2 for their first photo of a species, but shouldn't put in bunches of 1s and 2s. But that's my opinion, not an eBird rule. Photographers always try for a 5, but that quality rarely happens without planning your photoshoot in advance.

How are the Photo Ratings used?

eBird uses the better-rated photos in illustrated checklists at a local, county, country, or world level. And you can sort the photos by "best rated" first for your general viewing pleasure.

Sample eBird Illustrated Checklist at Buddy Todd Park, Oceanside, California. More photos needed!

What happens in practice?

1) No rating.
2) "Improper" rating.

Some photographers do not rate (any or some of) their personal photos. Or they may not rate their poorer photos. Others might tend to rate poorer photos as better than they are, especially if the bird is rare or charismatic and colorful.

So, then, one of two things happens. A great photo is not shown because no one rated it. A poorer photo is shown as "Best" when it clearly is not, and then is served up by eBird in illustrated checklists instead of an actually better photo. These are not important in the big scheme of things, I know. But I really like eBird and want it to be the best it can be.

How can you improve the eBird Photo Rating?

The more people that rate a photo, the better the result. Here's what I do when looking at eBird photos in media search.
1) I reorder the photos to "Best Quality." Then I rate the first dozen or so that may already be marked as 5 stars, asking: "Is this magazine cover quality?" If not, I give a lower rating, as appropriate, so the best rise to the top.
2) I reorder the photos to "Least Rated." Many of these aren't rated at all. I may "pick and choose" looking for treasures--a top photo with no ratings yet. That starts them up the listing to where they deserve. But it is important that all photos in eBird are rated because they are really in the Macaulay Library--like a museum collection of photographs. Who knows where they may be displayed someday.

Note: You may also come across a misidentified photo. You can report those in the Media Search tool. I just found a good photo of Townsend's Solitaire accidentally added as a Townsend's Warbler--an easy mistake to make! So that's another way you can improve the data... catch mistakes.

A dozen Sage Thrashers! Desert Avicaching

I scored two points!

While birding in Borrego Springs recently, I remembered that I had previously entered some locations on my maps application to search for desert thrashers this spring for something called "Avicaching." Of course, I had forgotten most of the details. But I knew that birding surveys usually happen at dawn. So we were too late in the day to make an "official" survey. But why not check out the location in case we get another opportunity this spring? So Marlene and I headed south from Borrego Springs after lunch. We stopped at Yaqui Well where I walked in and found the two Long-eared Owls (no photos) that have been present this winter. Then we continued on to Scissors Crossing and headed south about 12 miles to Blair Valley.

We easily found the survey sites on two miles of sandy dirt roads that were no problem for our Kia Soul--two wheel drive but about 10 inches of clearance. We didn't have much time, so we only visited two of the three survey sites for less than a half hour each.

What is Avicaching? The details for this Desert Avicaching survey is here. Basically, this is eBird + Geocaching. Survey sites in under-birded areas or habitats are set up as eBird Hotspots. Record birds here during the survey period (February 1 to June 15, 2018). Surveys should be 20-60 minutes and travel less than 1 mile to be valid.

Even though I wasn't there before 10:00 am, I noted that my eBird list was automatically entered into the Desert Avicaching Leaderboard. I scored two points!

Sage Thrasher. Blair Valley, California. March 18, 2018.

Avicaching is fun! This particular project contributes to knowledge of birds in remote desert areas that may be impacted by solar farms. In this case, Sage Thrashers migrate through this area in large numbers. And who knows, perhaps Le Conte's Thrashers may be resident here. Further north, in San Bernardino County, breeding Bendire's Thrashers may be impacted. Other Avicaching points continue in the Mojave Desert to Death Valley and Las Vegas, Nevada.

Birdless. That's the first impression one has of Blair Valley survey points. The low spot on the valley is a dry lake bed. Last year spring rains brought a "Super-Bloom" to the desert. Very little moisture this winter, so just year-old dry grass in the lake bottom. At the edges, sparse well-spaced creosote bushes begin. Then some Gander's cholla and Mojave yucca (like smaller Joshua trees). That's the vegetation of one of the survey sites.

But scanning across the creosote I spy several solitary robin-like birds hopping on the ground--Sage Thrashers! And they are more common than one would think. After I entered 2 birds on the checklist the rarity flag in eBird popped up. I quickly reached 9 birds, and finally 12 birds after walking a couple hundred feet out and then returned to the car in a large loop around the survey point. That surpasses the total number of Sage Thrashers I've seen total in the Anza-Borrego desert the past 3 years!

Driving out past the camping area there were several Mourning Doves, a Verdin called, and several Black-throated Sparrows flitted about. There were certainly birds here, especially up next to the rocky hill, but it requires work to find them.

The second survey point was closer to the highway. There was more vegetation here. Some gravelly areas included cholla, barrel and hedgehog cacti, California juniper, and desert agave. As the gravel gave way to sand, it was again creosote, cholla, and Mojave yucca.

The gravel/cactus area seemed good for Black-throated Sparrows. But none revealed themselves. I walked a couple hundred feet without encountering any sign of any birds. I was really thinking I was going to submit a 20-minute checklist with no birds recorded! Then I heard a very distant raven. Looping around back to the car I heard the chugging of a far-off Cactus Wren. When I reached the car I heard the caroling melody of a singing Sage Thrasher back where I had been. Three species, three total individuals, none seen. Then two ravens flew up right over me!

First eBird checklist.

Second eBird checklist.

Even though birds were sparse, I enjoyed visiting a new area for me and contributing to the knowledge of birds in a very under-birded location. I hope to get out there again a time or two this spring. I would really enjoy it if there were more avicaching projects to participate in. Perhaps it could be done as a follow-up to the bird atlas project that was done about 20 years ago in San Diego County. I know I really enjoyed the Oregon Breeding Bird Atlas project done about the same time. Fun!

eBird Tracks: What is it? What can it be?

eBird has added a new feature to their eBird mobile app. At this time it is only in Android, but they are working on an iOS version. I am really excited about the potential for this feature, called Tracks.

What is it?
eBird Tracks is a feature of the mobile app that creates a map with a track of your birding movements for each traveling checklist you make.

Screenshot: eBird Tracks of a recent birding hike I took on the Weir Trail at Palomar Mountain State Park.

What are the benefits now?
As stated, it came first on Android devices. So right now Tracks is only available on that platform. And right now the map track is only visible on the phone that created the checklist when you review that checklist. Not too exciting. The only benefit you get now is seeing on a map where you birded and having a very accurate measurement of how far your traveled.

What are the future uses for eBird Tracks?
This is really exciting for me to think about. Those tracks that only I can see now on my phone? They are captured in eBird and will be available for others in the future. Have you ever looked at the map for a rare sighting and found the Hotspot was a large area and you didn't know where in it the bird was? Well, with Tracks you'll at least have a map with the birding track on it. So you will know where to begin and what route to take.

When you visit the Hotspots section of eBird, you should be able to view the routes of recent birders to that location. This will give you a good idea of the route other birders regularly take, and maybe help you discover a new trail.

I also think that the eBird team should consider adding a feature to tag a specific bird's location. This function was available in the predecessor, BirdLog, and I've missed it for tagging exact locations in the comments section for certain birds.

The official announcement of eBird Tracks is here.

eBird: Illustrated checklists

A new functionality has been added to eBird, the illustrated checklist. A sample is shown here:

The above is a section of the eBird Hotspot checklist for the San Luis Rey River mouth in northern San Diego County, a place where I happen to have obtained many rather good photos.

From the eBird.org website, select...
Explore Data
Explore Hotspots
Then choose...
San Luis Rey River--mouth, San Diego County, California, US
View Details

There you will find a menu for three items...
Overview/Recent Visits/Illustrated Checklist

Chose Illustrated Checklist.

Along with the weekly bar chart checklist is a photo chosen from among the best-rated for that location.

Additional photos from the location are in the rightmost column, indicated with a little camera icon and the number of total photos available. Please note that many photos are not rated yet. So if you see a poorer photo displayed, and there are many more photos to choose from, please click on the photo icon to bring up all the photos. Then click on the first photo and rate it, and continue on. Next time the illustrated checklist displays a photo, it will be one of the better ones.

One other thing that was new to me is that in the hotspot Overview page, down a line or two is another menu bar: Last Seen/First Seen/Bar Charts/Printable Checklist. It is this last menu item, Printable Checklist which was new to me. Great for a field trip where participants don't all have access to eBird Mobile.

The Illustrated Checklists appear for specific Hotspot sites, counties, states, and countries.

Even if you are not a regular contributor to eBird (and if not, why?) this application is unbeatable to help you prepare for a birding trip and find your target birds.

eBird Community Photo Ratings

Recently eBird announced community photo and audio ratings for media submitted directly on eBird checklists through the Macauley Library. Only some people have been rating their own photos as to quality. Now every eBird member can rate the photos of others. "Is this photo a 3 ("average") or 4 ("good")? Now you can have more than just your own subjective opinion. The more people rate your photos the more "accurate" the rating becomes as to its aesthetic value and suitability for identification.

How do you look at the photos and start rating them?

Log in to eBird, if you aren't already when it opens, and select "Explore Data" from the menu, and then "Search Photos and Sounds" from the list. This brings you to the Media Search page and the 2.66 million photos and audio recordings currently added to eBird checklists. Click on the photo and rate it. Then keep going!

Oh, first you should understand the rating criteria. 1 is "terrible"--if you squint just right you may be able to make out the correct identification. 3 means you can see and identify the bird but it is small in the frame, turned at a funny angle, partially blocked by vegetation, slightly off-focus, or otherwise just an average picture. 5 is magazine cover worthy. I chose a photo at random just uploaded below--a wonderfully close and sharp photo of an American Three-toed Woodpecker from Canada. It had one rating already, perhaps by the photographer, of 5. I'm picky; for a 5 I want all of the bird in the frame, or a portrait of just head and shoulders, with nothing distracting in the background. So I rated it a 4. The next person that rates it may call it a 4 or 5. I don't think anyone would call it a 3--it's certainly better than average. With more people rating it, it will probably come out at about 4.8, but that's not a value one person can put in. By the way, the official eBird rating guidelines are here.

Perhaps, though, you only want to rate photos in your local county or only a nearby Hotspot. You can filter by Location at various levels from Country all the way down to Hotspot. You can filter by any Date or range of dates. You can choose to show, or not, recently reported rare birds before they have been vetted as to accurate identity ("Unconfirmed"). You can even choose to rate just the photos by your favorite eBird Contributor.

What is eBird? Every birder who ever keeps track of the birds they see, home or away, should be an eBirder. eBird is a real-time online worldwide citizen-science community checklist program, and so much more! Want more explanation of what it is all about? Click here.

eBird Profile Pages

For the past few weeks I have been adding bird photos to my older eBird checklists.

In July I wrote about the new eBird Media Search tool. That allows one to search for photos and audio records that have been added to eBird checklists. It has only been since November 2015 that you could add photos to your checklists. Now, however, a new feature, called Profile Pages has been added to eBird. If a person so chooses, he can add a blurb about himself and make it publicly viewable. It shows a map with the number of species recorded in each country, state, county, along with the bird photos from each.

I knew I have over 325 photos of birds from Oregon, and must be over 200 in San Diego County now. But the eBird Profile pages says I had far fewer photos in my checklists. So I went back to 2002 and added photos to my checklists. I just completed adding all my bird photos to all checklists today. 536 species recorded in the United States, 411 of those photographed. 417 species recorded in Oregon, 336 of those photographed. 334 species recorded in San Diego County, California, 280 of those photographed. Here is my profile page.

My eBird Profile page. From here one can zoom in or out to different world, country, state, or county levels.

Besides the different geopolitical levels you can zoom to, you may also view all their photos that have been added to eBird checklists. IF (a big if, but highly recommended) the photographer has ranked the quality of their photos then you can sort on their best photos, along with newest and oldest. And those choices are also sortable with the zoom to each geopolitical level.

This is a good tool for tracking your own photos and species seen, and also view the same for others.

So how do you find out who has a profile you can view? The best way is to Explore Data, Top 100, and choose the state and county where they bird they most. If they have a public profile page their name will be highlighted as a web link. Click and view!

Like this:

This feature is just getting started. I suspect (hope) that additional tools will be added to the Profile pages. One thing I want is my checklist to note whether I have ever photographed a species or not. That way I can go out and take photos of birds I've never obtained in whatever region I am interested in.

Play around in the Profile page and you can see that the maps change by clicking on "Species Observed" and "Species w/ Photos." Fun stuff!

An Annotated Bird Checklist to San Diego County

I have created a stand-alone page for an Annotated Checklist to the Birds of San Diego County.

The main purpose of this checklist is to answer the question:
"When and where is the best place to find each bird species within San Diego County?"

Use the comments section of this post to offer corrections or additions to the checklist. I will use your comments to keep the checklist up-to-date and as accurate as I can.

What, exactly, is an annotated checklist? Well, a simple checklist is a list of birds that have been found in the county. Most checklists also provide seasonal abundance. An annotated checklist provides additional information in the form of textual annotations.

Why is an annotated checklist needed?

518 species of birds have been found in San Diego County (counting the newly split Townsend's Storm-Petrel in July 2016). Only five states have recorded more birds: Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas. Of course, being far to the south and west, San Diego has recorded many birds that aren't expected very often. Of those 500+ species, how many can you be likely to see in a single year?

The authority on the birds of the county is the 600+ page book "San Diego County Bird Atlas" by Philip Unitt, published in 2004. This volume maps and discusses birds during a 5-year county-wide survey by hundreds of volunteer birders from March 1997 to February 2002. Like me, you can buy this book for $50 on Amazon.com (but only 6 left).

The San Diego Field Ornithologists provide a County Checklist. It lists every species of bird ever found in the county along with a rarity status code.

These two references suffer from opposite problems as far as birders seeking information on bird-finding. The checklist is too brief and the book too in-depth for quickly finding information.

The book is also starting to suffer from obsolescence due to two things: 1) Bird populations are constantly changing and the book is now a dozen years old. 2) 20% of the county has burned since publication, including 98% of the mountain conifer forest in the huge Cuyamaca Rancho State Park.

A new source of bird distribution information started in 2002: eBird. This citizen science web-based bird reporting database system really took off in 2010, growing since then at a rate of 20-30% per year. In May 2016 a record 11.8 million bird records from around the world were added to the database during just that one month! California has always been at the forefront of eBird, and San Diego bird records are well-represented.

How this annotated checklist came about

As I approach 3 years living and birding in San Diego County I have now seen most of the expected annual species. But there are still several species I haven't found. And I have yet to find over 300 species in any single year. So, rather than rely on chance and my own exploration, I researched both the Atlas and eBird to try to figure out when and where each species is most likely to be found.

Knowing that others would benefit from my research, I organized and preserved my findings on the page in this link: http://sandiegogreg.blogspot.com/p/annotated-checklist-of-birds-of-san.html

I hope you find it useful.

New eBird Media Search

Last November eBird allowed photos, video, and audio to be uploaded with your eBird checklists and stored on the Macaulay Library archive. So, when you take a photo and add it to your checklist you add to the scientific collection. By May of this year over a half million bird photos have been uploaded. Numerous video and audio files have been stored, too.

And now you can search these photos!

Each photo becomes what they call a "digital specimen." What does that mean? Well, it allows scientists and anyone interested to view rare bird records, for instance, and actually see the bird. In the not-so-distant past, rare birds had to be shot, killed, skinned, and sent to museums where the specimen was kept forever as verifiable physical evidence supporting an identification. These archived photos kept at the Macaulay Library of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology now do the same things with digital evidence, and no birds were killed!

But it doesn't have to be a rare bird, such as a first state record, or something like that. It can be a common bird. Did you get a really great photo of a bird common to your area? Add it to your eBird checklist. Birds vary across their range--they may not all look exactly alike everywhere they occur. Your photo could be used to find heretofore unknown variation. Even more exciting, such variation may even reveal cryptic, or "hidden," species--a new species hiding among some common bird that we didn't even know existed. These cryptic species are not just found in some far-way, never-birded, jungle somewhere. New species are being described from well-birded areas all the time--birds that look alike but don't breed with each other when they meet because of song or courtship differences (take for example the recent splitting of a former single species of small little brown Holarctic wren into three species: the European Wren, Winter Wren, and Pacific Wren). Your photos could be valuable for discovering some of these. And even if not, just having your bird photos put in a digital museum is kind of neat, isn't it? You can be the local collector for a notable museum! How cool is that?!!! ("Cool" and "neat"? Yes a child of the 60's.)

Here is a recent checklist with photos that I submitted. ("Yes, I'm a local collector for the museum at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology." Ooh, I like it!)

So, besides storing your own bird photos with your checklists, what do you do with this new feature?

Well, here's a link that takes you to the most recent photos of San Diego County birds. Change the filter to search your own county or state,... or somewhere else, even far away.

How do I use this? I check out the new photos added recently from my area. ("Oh, the rare bird that's being seen nearby is a dull first-year bird and not the full adult male as in the field guide?") That helps me form a search image when I go look for the reported rarity... or just keep my eyes open for finding my own rarity in my own patch. Or, perhaps you note the unique habitat ("Oh, it's on the ground in the cattail marsh. And here I was looking for it in the tops of the spruce trees."). There's no limit of what you might learn just by looking at recent photos of birds in your own area.

I expect to discover even more uses for the photos, video, and audio in this digital museum. What will you use them for?

A secret eBird function: most-recently seen

&rank=mrec
&rank=lrec

I've been after the eBird development crew for a few years to add an option to sort lists by the most-recently seen, in addition to the first-time seen (Life Bird).

The way it is now, if you create your life list and then sort by date, the first bird on your list will be your very first bird ever recorded for eBird. In my case, it is a Red-breasted Sapsucker seen in Oregon in 1972.

I've seen lots of Red-breasted Sapsuckers since that first one. The question I really want to ask now is, "What is the bird that I haven't seen in the longest time?" In my case, as far as eBird records go, it is a Black-billed Cuckoo on my grandfather's farm in Minnesota in June 1977. In all my 40 years since then, I have never seen another Black-billed Cuckoo.

Why would you want this feature? Well, if you were doing a County Big Year you might want to know which species you haven't seen in years, and concentrate on finding those. Even if you are not into Big Years or listing, per se, wouldn't it be nice to have eBird make you a list of birds you haven't seen in a very long time? Then you could plan some trips to look for them--perhaps in an area or habitat you haven't visited in a while.

A section of my "Most-recent" list of birds I've seen in Washington County, Oregon. These aren't the first time I saw these birds in the county, rather, the last time I saw them there!

It is true that many of the birds you haven't seen for a long time are likely to be rarer. But perhaps you'll find there are a few that are common enough that you just haven't seen in a while. It's time you became reacquainted!

Recently, I stumbled upon the answer when I was researching the Hotspots in eBird. One of the lists for birds in the Hotspots is most-recently-seen birds!

Ready? Here's how:

In eBird go to "My eBird"
Click on the link for number of birds you've seen in "My Life List"
Your life list now appears
In the web browser bar (the one beginning "ebird.org/ebird/MyEBird?cmd..." go to the end of the link and add the following characters with no spaces: "&rank=mrec"
Hit ENTER or click the reload page button to send the command.

There's your list of the very last time you've seen each species!

This works with any of your lists: Life, Country, State, County.

NOTE: when all done, do it again with "&rank=lrec" this time to bring it back to the default order, or your lists will be stuck with most-recent first.

BirdLog is dead! Long live eBird Mobile!

eBird Mobile for Android just came out, joining eBird Mobile for iOS that has been available for about 5 months. These Apps replace BirdLog.

eBird is a real-time online checklist program by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. It was first introduced in 2002. Frankly, I wasn't enamored with it until 2010-2011 when useful tools showed up that allowed anyone to view recent bird sightings maps and frequency and abundance bar charts anywhere in the world. Other enhancements that followed included selectable alerts and photos embedded in the checklists. In December 2011 I called eBird "an absolutely indispensable real time world-wide bird status and distribution tool." eBird can even make you a better birder.

The power of eBird was greatly enhanced in 2012 by the introduction of BirdLog by BirdsEye Nature Apps. I called BirdLog the "'killer app' for eBirders!" Now one could submit bird sightings directly from the field on their smart phone! No more transcribing field notes into eBird on your computer at the end of the day. It is so easy that you just start a new checklist for each new location during your birding trip and keep track of the birds as you see them. In July 2013 I wrote an eBird best practices post on using BirdLog. These best practices apply equally to the new eBird Mobile.

You know what's even better? eBird Mobile is 1) FREE! and 2) one App covers the whole world! Previously, BirdLog for each region (North America, Mexico and Central America, Australia and New Zealand, etc.) was priced at $10 each, while a world App was $20. eBird Mobile is now available in 5 languages.

In February 2011 I wrote: "Just as binoculars and field guide has defined a birder for the past 75 years, I believe eBird will define what it means to be a birder in the coming decades."  I believe this to be more true than ever, and now with eBird Mobile it is free and so much easier!

Many thanks go to the developers of BirdLog for making field data entry into eBird so wonderfully easy. Now that this functionality is moved directly to the eBird team, I expect even smoother integration and regular enhancements. Well done to all involved! Congratulations.

On taking field notes

Guess what's in this blue tub?

Van Remsen in American Birds September 1977 wrote an article that greatly influenced my birding: "On Taking Field Notes." Following this article I changed the way I kept track of birds I saw. In fact, I kept field notes based on this article faithfully for 28 years, until 1996. After that my field notes kind of sputtered and were irreglular until 2006. Then I started using BirdNotes online for some of my birding trip lists. 

A tub full of Greg's bird field notes dated from 1972 to 2006.

In 2010 I started using eBird and became a strong advocate (one might even say "evangelist") of this great program (click here for "What is eBird?" that I wrote in 2010). This real-time online checklist program allows me to take field notes in the way that Remsen recommended. Locations can be mapped precisely. Time and distance are recorded. I can note mere presence or exactly count numbers. Rare birds are flagged (and vetted) so that I must write a description before they'll be accepted into the database. One of the problems of my paper field notes is that I would underline rare birds on my day's list, but then not say anything more about them. Thus, years later, even I can't vouch for some of the sightings of rare birds that I listed but did not describe. I can even add photos to my lists.

The reason I bring this all up (again)? Just this week I finished a 5 year project of entering all those 37 years of my bird notes (1972-2010) into eBird. Yes, every bird that I've ever seen for which I have notes that contain exact locations and dates, are now in eBird. In total, including these old notes and bird lists directly into eBird from 2010 to date, they number over 7000 checklists. 4000 of those lists are complete checklists--every bird I saw at a particular location and date. All my notes, all those valuable data, all that hard work, is preserved and publicly available right now as long as eBird and National Audubon Society and the Internet exist. That's a lot better than sitting unused in a blue tub in my closet.

I think Van Remsen would be pleased.

BirdLog to become FREE eBird Mobile

eBird is the indispensable tool of today's birders. Binoculars, field guide, eBird. There are some "that's not the way I watch birds" holdouts, but by and far, over the past 15 years or so, bird watching has come to be synonymous with eBird.

eBird is a free real-time online checklist program with powerful tools that let you keep track of your own bird lists. Its power comes from its ability to also see the range, frequency, and abundance of birds around the world as entered by tens of thousands of eBird users. On a recent "Global Big Day" on May 9, 2015 there were 13,664 eBird users that submitted 42,920 checklists that contained 6,013 different bird species. One. Single. Day.

For entering your eBird lists in the field, there is nothing better than the BirdLog smart phone app by Birds In the Hand, LLC. It first hit the market in March 2012. Frankly, it was the reason I purchased my first smart phone.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the host of eBird, recognizes the great utility of BirdLog, calling it "critical to eBird." Thus, the Lab obtained the rights to BirdLog and will make some changes and offer it FREE as eBird Mobile.

eBird Mobile is now in beta testing for iOS phones and will likely be available for Android phones soon. Since I have an Android phone I do not have a personal review for you of the beta version. In fact, I cannot find a review online... yet.

Keep watching!

See older posts of mine about eBird and BirdLog on the now-idle "Pacific NW Birder" blog:

"What is eBird?" November 15, 2010

"BirdLog 'Killer App' for eBirders" March 19, 2012

"eBird Best Practices: Using Birdlog" July 26, 2013

eBird: Target Species

I don't know when it appeared, but a new function on eBird, "Target Species," has some really exciting applications.

If you don't know about eBird, I wrote 20 posts about eBird, and how to get the most out of it, from 2010-2012 on my (now inactive) Pacific NW Birder blog. Suffice it to say, I said, without hyperbole: "eBird is an absolutely indispensable real time world-wide bird status and distribution tool."

I've been living in San Diego County, now, for just over a year. Here's a question I want to know: What species that I haven't seen yet are the easiest to find in the county? Even more practical: What birds that I haven't seen yet in the county are the most likely for me to find next month?

Those questions are answered with the Target Species function in eBird. What did I learn?

The top 5 reported birds in the county, for the entire year, that I haven't seen yet are these:
1. Snowy Plover
2. Lawrence's Goldfinch
3. Red-crowned Parrot
4. Hermit Warbler
5. Canyon Wren

Well, it's winter now, so I'm not going to see some of these birds as easily now as later in the year. So, how about I use this eBird function to plan birding trips next month to look for some of these "easy" ones? What are the top 5 reported birds in January that I have yet to see in San Diego County?

1. Snowy Plover
2. Reddish Egret
3. Green-tailed Towhee
4. Red-crowned Parrot
5. Virginia Rail

Now, I have a reasonable list of target birds to look for in the next month or so. I can use eBird Needs Alert and the San Diego Region Birding email list to learn of recent reports of these birds. I can also use the eBird map function to map all previous reports and look at only winter.