eBird (Interview for a research)

[Rhelaric]

I had a few questions about the eBird project. Especially for those who are already taking part of the project or maybe some professionals.

Can you explain what the project is about? What goal is being tried to achieve? What do you think, is the reason for the existence of this specific project?

What kind of experiences did you have during the implementation of the project? How did the project work? What did you have to do?

What occurred to you when you discovered eBird? What was decisive for choosing to participate in this project?

(This is meant for a research on crowdsourcing).

[charlie]

are you discussing the eBird website itself or an iNaturalist project on eBird? If the former, this may not be the best place to ask this question, is there an eBird forum? I know there’s a lot of crossover between the two but, I’m not sure how many of those people read this forum…

[Rhelaric]

aww man, its bout the eBird project it self and unfortunately there’s no eBird forum

[charlie]

hmm, i’m not sure then. I moved this to the ‘nature talk’ topic since this post isn’t about iNaturalist.

[Rhelaric]

Okay thx.

[malisaspring]

You could try joining a few local birding facebook groups and ask the admins if it is okay to ask the group questions about their use of ebird. They would be more likely to use ebird or at least be able to share your questions with others who use it.

[fffffffff]

My experience on eBird is that I left it for iNat.

[scubabruin]

I use both, but eBird rather infrequently. If you are an active birder, you may find it enjoyable to add checklists of what you’ve seen. And, unlike iNat, you don’t need photos. From my understanding, eBird has been around quite a long time and birding could be considered one of the earlier citizen/community science forums. I’ve enjoyed guided birding outings where we’ve been encouraged to use eBird and one in particular where our list was shared by all participants, which was a nice little social network extra :)

If you want an introduction to an active eBird expert and ornithologist who could provide you with detailed explanations , please PM me and I’ll send an email. Also, Merlin Bird ID (an offshoot of eBird) is a great tool to help your birding endeavors. Hope this helps a bit.

[upupa-epops]

There is an eBird forum/group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/288737854555183/
There’s also an unofficial eBird Discord server.

[boattailedgrackle]

same here!!!

[tallastro]

@Rhelaric

Can you explain what the project is about? What goal is being tried to achieve? What do you think, is the reason for the existence of this specific project? See https://ebird.org/about

What kind of experiences did you have during the implementation of the project? How did the project work? What did you have to do? Very positive, easy to use app. I enter count numbers as I encounter birds. Later I can review my lists and the lists of others.

What occurred to you when you discovered eBird? What was decisive for choosing to participate in this project? I began using the tool. It worked, it’s not hard to use. Data collected may be useful to scientific efforts to study birds.

See bold above

[Rhelaric]

thx everyone

[draposo79]

eBird is by far a much more suited tool for birdwatchers than iNat. The downside is that you need to have a bit of experience to use it properly.

[milliebasden]

@Rhelaric

Can you explain what the project is about? What goal is being tried to achieve? What do you think, is the reason for the existence of this specific project?

eBird is an online database that accumulates observations of birds (including location, date, time of day, number of individuals, and info about age, sex, and behavior and media such as photos and sound recordings). I believe its goal and reason for existence is at least twofold: users have a place to keep records of what they have seen and scientists can use the records to map ranges, determine movements of birds etc.

@Rhelaric

What kind of experiences did you have during the implementation of the project? How did the project work? What did you have to do?

I learned about eBird in 2006 at a local Audubon Society meeting and opened an account shortly after following the directions on the website. From then on, whenever I went birding, I would keep notes of birds seen and then create a list on eBird on my computer when I got home. I also added records from handwritten lists I had made before 2006. When the mobile app came out, I began to use it to record birds while out birding. I now have more than 3500 eBird lists. When I report a “rare” bird on eBird, a volunteer eBird reviewer will check to see if I have provided adequate documentation of the bird (a photo, sound recording, or written description that shows how I eliminated the more expected species).

@Rhelaric

What occurred to you when you discovered eBird? What was decisive for choosing to participate in this project?

I believe eBird is beneficial to me (record-keeping and review of rare birds by “expert”) and I hope it is also beneficial to science and conservation.