Every observation is a sign of where iNatters are, and maybe how info about iNat is distributed across populations (and wealth of those populations, e.g. here it’s a straight correlation of wealth and number of obs per region).
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/biases-in-inat-data/23943
But I also feel like you’re talking about Robin, as it’s a first UK bird that comes to my mind with your description.) It needs to be added, that this species behaves pretty different in different parts of Europe. I would say its range is quite nicely represented on iNat, could just be more observations in some areas. It reminds me a Dunnock that I feel is seen as garden bird in UK, and here you have the bigger chances to spot if you go to a dark forest and try to locate it by ear. Reading old book, I found out Blackbirds were considered secret far-from-human birds just 50 years ago. Wood pigeons live all over cities in Europe, in other parts of its range it’s not that, Stock doves also are known to be hating humans, but from certain observations I see it’s different in other places.
An easy to spot bias in data I see in my project, the further the spot is from the city, lesser amount of observations will be there. I know some regions that has 0 obs of particular birds, plants, insects, common ones, there’re just not enough big observers there.
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