[Tweeters] Does E-bird have a top-100 problem? (Ed Newbold)

[Steve Hampton]

I assume you are referring to the curious standings for birds seen in
Washington in 2023.
https://ebird.org/top100?region=Washington&locInfo.regionCode=US-WA&year=2023&rankedBy=spp

It lists:
1. David Benson, 373 species (100.27% of total species reported in the
state this year), 5 checklists
2. Liam Hutcheson, 364 species (97.85%), 847 checklists

There is nothing nefarious here; it's simply a data entry quirk. As
Benson's profile is public, you can see that his 5 lists curiously come
from 6 counties. You can also see he's a birder from out of state who has
made only a few visits here. These somewhat non-sensical results are likely
a product of the eBird system and incorrect data entry when entering one's
life list (or state list) and not following the eBird protocol to avoid
having the entire life list becoming connected to one time and place. I'm
sure he'll correct it at some point. Ideally, eBird would somehow
automatically notify him (and make entering life lists a little less
quirky).

Rest assured, young Liam is in the lead, and is a great example of how
these "top 100s" serve as a driver for learning more about our avifauna, as
well as developing friendships across multiple generations. Yes, there is
competition, but that takes a back seat to cool birds and great
experiences. Though Liam doesn't yet have a driver's license (kudos here to
his mom and friends for driving at times!), his quest has taken him to all
corners of the state, learning a ton about bird distribution and habits in
the process. In the few days I've had the privilege of birding with him, he
shared some of the things he's learned about certain species, for which I'm
grateful. Previous big year efforts by Brian Pendleton and Darchelle Worley
(376 in 2022) and Will Brooks (376 in 2021) were also inspiring in their
own ways.

Go Liam and good birding to all!





On Sun, Sep 24, 2023 at 5:16 PM Karen Wosilait <karen.w.mobile at gmail.com>
wrote:


> Jim, eBird can do what you’d like, produce a bar chart for a county for a

> range of years (or a part of the year).

>

> On the Explore page, type (for example) your county of interest. It will

> default to last seen sightings, but on the left, then choose “bar charts.”

>

> If you want a shorter time interval, there’s a “change date” option.

>

> Karen Wosilait (she/her)

> Seattle, WA

> karen.w.mobile at gmail.com

>

> > On Sep 24, 2023, at 12:51 PM, jimbetz at jimbetz.com wrote:

> >

> > Ed,

> >

> >  I share your disappointment with eBird.  It is a great tool for

> > recording what you saw/heard - and for keeping personal records

> > over time.  Beyond that there are many things it does not do

> > well ... such as any "research".  Try and get eBird to tell you

> > when a particular species is likely to be in your area for example.

> >  Big picture research is "fairly good" but as soon as you want to

> > get down to questions such as "what's been seen recently, and

> > where, in my "county"? ... it leaves a lot to be desired.

> >

> >  Yes, I know how to use eBird to get county level info - but

> > "last seen" or "high count" aren't what I need.  I'd like to see a

> > graph of the presence of a species over the past few years for a

> > particular date range ... for instance.

> >

> >  I'm not into "competitive birding" - at any level (don't even

> > keep a life list) so I can't say if the Top-100 list is useful -

> > or not.

> >                                             - Jim in Burlington

> >

> > _______________________________________________

> > Tweeters mailing list

> > Tweeters at u.washington.edu

> > http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters

> _______________________________________________

> Tweeters mailing list

> Tweeters at u.washington.edu

> http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters

>



-- 
​Steve Hampton​
Port Townsend, WA  (qatáy)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20230924/59da11ab/attachment.html>