[Tweeters] Reporting - was "new yard bird"

[via Tweeters]

  Louise,

  Back when I was first starting to use eBird I asked this specific question
about my checklists.  Specifically - "when do you report (count) a bird?"
and gave the example of my backyard feeder and the fact that I could
see birds coming and going ... but suspected - highly - that some/many
of them were 'repeats' and had been there as short a time ago as only a
few minutes.

  The answer I got was "if you don't know for certain it is the same bird -
count it".  So even if you have a group of say 10 finches that are coming
and going from your yard/feeder - the advice is to count them "every time
you see them that you, personally, can't say it is the same bird".
  This advice is not just about birds in our backyards.  And Cornell
doesn't consider it "over counting" (probably because you will also
miss many birds that might visit your backyard when you do something
as seemingly insignificant as just getting another cup of coffee).
  There are similar considerations for 2 or more people all seeing and
reporting the -same- bird ... perhaps even birding together.

  So here is my take/interpretation of this advice.  As long as everyone is
using pretty much the same methods - it doesn't matter ... because 
what the science is about is the changes - over time and even over
relatively long periods of time.  Such as from one season to the next or
one year to the next or one decade to the next.
  We all know about events such as "irruptions" and "long term trends"
etc.  

  ===> If we have lots of data (reports) then it all averages out in ways
            that wouldn't be true for just a few reports (total number of
            checklist).  

  But there -are- lots of checklists being done in all kinds of situations.
So report what you can ID and let the citizen science work out what it
means.  Even reports such as "Gull, species" are valuable/useful -
especially when compared to no reports at all?
                                                                       
                 - Jim in Skagit
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