Using eBirdA beginner’s guide to listing

eBird IndiaFor Great Backyard Bird Count-India, Big Bird Day,

Kerala Common Bird Monitoring Programme, Bangalore Bird Count, and more!

ContentsView in full screen mode (click ‘Present’) for a clickable list

You can return to this Contents page by clicking on from any slide

1. What is eBird and why use it »2. Creating an account and setting preferences »3. Submitting a list »4. Telling others about your list »5. Managing your locations and lists »6. Documenting a full day’s birding »7. Beyond the basics: embedding photos and sharing lists »8. Best practice in listing: complete lists; short lists, count individuals »9. Exploring further: hotspots, range maps and more… »

10. eBird on your smartphone: BirdLog Asia »11. Initiatives using eBird »12. Further information »

What is eBird?

A global, internet-based checklist program● for gathering observations of birds● for birders to maintain their personal records.

In this way, eBird● gathers baseline data on bird distribution and abundance● disseminates information for public and scientific use

It is safe and reliable● used by more than 100,000 birders● holds nearly 200 million bird records

It has many useful features for birders● easy to use● send your lists to others with a unique URL● embed photos, videos, sound files● summarize & download your own bird sightings● maintain your life list, state-wise lists, location-wise lists, etc.

All bird records are made available● on-site mapping and graphing tools● raw data available for download and use

Why use eBird?

Go to www.ebird.org to sign up for a free account

Creating an account

Creating an account

Set your preferences so that you see names you are used to!Choose “Species Name Display” as: English (India)

Setting account preferences

Here is a step-by-step guide to submitting a bird list

Click on ‘Submit Observations’ after logging in

Submitting a list

The first time you submit a list, choose ‘Find it on a Map’

Submitting a list

Select Country as India, and leave the rest blank

Submitting a list

Begin typing in the search box to find a location near you

Submitting a list

An existing red marker indicates a public birding location (or ‘hotspot’)If this is your location, click on the red marker to choose it

Submitting a list

If there is no existing marker, click on your location and add a nameSuggest it as a ‘hotspot’ unless it is a private location (eg, your home)

Submitting a list

On the next screen, select the date of your list, and the type of listMost lists fall under one of the three types listed

Submitting a list

Once an Observation Type is selected, add more information about your birding effort; and add comments for your later reference

Submitting a list

Now to your bird list! Search for the first species using the box at top right.When you select the species...

Submitting a list

… the page automatically scrolls down to the text box for that species, where you can enter your count...

… and add further details and comments if you wish

Submitting a list

If you haven’t counted individuals, type an ‘X’ in the box, indicating that you have seen/heard the species

Here is a useful tip: once you type your count in the text box, type the letter ‘j’, and you will be taken back to the search box

Click on ‘Shortcuts’ to see more keyboard shortcuts that will make your lists easier to upload

For example, next to Eurasian Coot, type 25j. This will specify that you saw 25 coots, and will jump you back to the search box for the next species

Submitting a list

If you can’t find the species you are looking for, click on ‘Show Rarities’You can also choose to report subspecies for those races that are very distinct

If you do report a rare species, you will be asked for supporting information.This could include a verbal description or a photo or both.

Submitting a list

When done, you will be asked whether you are submitting a complete list. Say ‘Yes’ unless you are deliberately leaving out some species (eg, landbirds, common birds).

Submitting a list

Telling others about your listEvery eBird list comes with a unique web address (URL), which is shown to you when

you submit your list. Send this URL to your friends, and they can see your list too.

On the right-hand panel, after you submit your list, you will see an option to email yourself a plain-text version of your list, which you can then forward along to others.

Managing your locations and listsClicking on ‘My eBird’ takes you to a dashboard where you can manage sightings and

create various summaries of your observations

You might sometimes go birding for a full day, perhaps as part of a ‘bird race’ or a ‘bird day’

Documenting a full day’s birding

Your goal might be to generate a bird list for the full day, and you can use eBird for this. But please consider entering multiple, location-specific lists, instead of simply a single day list. Why? Because during the day you will probably cover many locations across a larger area. For many reasons, it’s best if individual sightings are tied to specific locations. (Did you see that White-breasted Waterhen at a lake or at those rice paddies?)

So, if possible, maintain in your notebook, a separate, full list of birds for each location you visit (with time and other effort information); upload these as separate ‘complete’ lists. Birds you see while travelling between locations can be submitted as ‘incidental’ sightings.

When you are done, you can generate your day list. Click on ‘My eBird’, then ‘Summarize My Observations’, to create a ‘Week Report’ starting on the date you were birding. Select all locations you visited and you will be shown a list of your species, which can be printed and downloaded.

Beyond the basics: embedding photosIf you have photos of the species you saw, sometimes it makes sense to associated a photo with the sighting. Maybe it’s a particularly nice photo or maybe the photo helps confirm the identification of a rare or unusual bird.

In brief, upload your photo to a photo-sharing site like Flickr or Picasa. These provide an embed code,which you can copy and paste into the comments field on eBird. Habitat photos should be embedded into the comment field for the overall checklist; bird photos should be embedded into the comment field for that species.

You can also embed videos and sound files. For more on how to embed multimedia files, click here. The embedded multimedia files are displayed together with your sightings when you or someone else visits the URL for your list. Here is an example.

Beyond the basics: sharing your listsIf you have gone birding in a group, then it’s likely that many of you saw the same individuals of the same species. In such cases, it’s best if one person uploads his/her list, and then ‘shares’ the list with the others.

In eBird, sharing a list with someone means that a copy of the list is saved in that person’s account. When this is done, all the species are then added to that person’s life list and other bird data. For this reason, you should ‘share’ a list only with those who were birding with you on that occasion. Once the list is shared, your friends can delete species they didn’t see, or add species they saw which you didn’t. In this way, everyone’s records are accurate.

To share with a friend, you will need to know his or her eBird username or the email address which was used to register. If the person does not yet have an eBird account, sharing via email will prompt him/her to register on eBird to be able to accept the list.

More details about checklist sharing are here

Best practice in listing: complete listsWhen on a birding trip, many of us are tempted to record only species of particular interest, and we sometimes ignore common (sometimes unfairly called ‘trash’) species!

But, for many reasons, it is often equally important to document what we did not see in addition to what we did see! If you record all the species you were able to identify, then it is clear what you did not see. But if you don’t document all the species, a species could be missing from your list, not because you didn’t see it, but simply because you were not interested in it.

The best thing to do is to list all the species you saw, regardless of whether they are common or rare, or of any specific interest to you. Then you have collected a Complete List!

Read more here about why it’s much better to collect Complete Lists than Incomplete ones.

Best practice in listing: short lists, one locationAs birders, we often maintain notes such that we have a single list for an entire day.

But during an entire day, we are likely to cover several locations, and different habitats too. The day-list then does not allow us to say precisely where we saw each species. Knowing precisely where birds are found (and where they are not) is important for documentation and conservation.

So, it’s best to maintain a separate list for each distinct location you visit, even if you only spend 15 minutes birding at any given location. These location-lists can be uploaded separately to eBird.

If you spend a long time (eg, an entire day) at a single location, you might think it makes sense to keep a single list. But in fact, even here it’s better to keep multiple short (eg, 15 or 30 min) lists. Why? Because at the end of the day, you will know which species were seen in all of your eight, 30-min lists; and which were seen in only one of these lists. And that tells you a lot more about the abundance of different species than does a single list.

To summarize, if possible, maintain your records such that each distinct location gets one or more 15-min, complete lists. But if this is not possible, don’t worry, and maintain whatever list(s) you can!

Best practice in listing: count individuals

It’s sometimes very difficult to count of the number of individual birds of each species we see. Despite this, even rough counts are of great value. For example, it’s possible that on a visit to Pulicat Lake you see 3 Lesser Flamingoes, and on another visit you see 1,500. If all you put in the box next to the species is ‘X’, then the difference in the two visits is lost!

So it’s best to count individuals, even if that takes extra time and effort; and it’s ideal if you can do this for all species you see.

More information on the value of counts, and on tips for how to count birds is given here.

And more generally, here are some tips for how to make your bird lists more valuable, both for yourself, and for the overall storehouse of ornithological knowledge!

Exploring further: hotspots

‘Hotspots’, in eBird, are any birding locations that are publicly accessible. Multiple birders can add their lists to such locations (which they can’t to private, non-hotspot locations). In this way, all lists from a hotspot can be aggregated and displayed.

You can look at aggregated bird information from hotspots by going to the Hotspot Explorer and searching for your favourite birding location.

Exploring further: hotspotsOnce you find your hotspot, you get a summary of what is known from there; and you can explore various details about the bird sightings.

You can suggest any location as a hotspot by ticking the box ‘Suggest as a Birding HotSpot’ when first choosing a location from where to submit a list. Or you can do this for your existing locations through the Manage My Locations page.

Exploring further: range maps

eBird provides a way for you to make maps of the frequency of occurrence of any species you are interested in. Go to Explore Data, then Range and Point Maps, find the species you want, and zoom in to the region you are interested in.

In this map for House Crow, darker squares are those where House Crows occur frequently on lists. You can set the months and years you want to examine, and compare summer and winter maps for migrants, or reports of vultures 5 years ago versus today.

If you keep zooming in, you will see the actual locations of lists with the species, and can explore who has seen the species, when, and so on.

Exploring further: more..There are many more ways in which you can put eBird to use, including:

● Looking at how species occurrence changes with the season, using Bar Charts

● Comparing your lists and species counts with other birders in the Top 100

● Creating reports and email alerts for rarities as they are reported

● Summarizing your observations by week, month or year

● A very addictive global submission map, in which locations light up whenever someone submits a new list.

● ... and much more!

eBird on your smartphone: BirdLog AsiaUpload your lists directly from the field using your iPhone or android phone by using BirdLog. BirdLog Asia is currently free for download until mid-Feb 2014.

Startup screen. You need to have an eBird account, or BirdLog will prompt you to set one up.

Home screen. When ready, touch “Submit Sightings”

To begin, touch “Choose location from a map”. You will need an internet connection.

eBird on your smartphone: BirdLog Asia

Find your area on the map. If there is an existing hotspot (public location, shown as red marker), choose that.

To specify a new location, touch the map and type in a name for the location.

Internet connection not needed any more. Specify date and start time for your list if different from your phone’s date and time.

The add sightings screen appears, with a list of species from the region.

eBird on your smartphone: BirdLog Asia

Begin typing the count (here, 2 birds) and a few letters of the species name; choose from alternatives displayed. Your species count (green box) is now one.

Two Rose-ringed Parakeets were followed by six Grey Francolins. What you have seen is shown in bold below, and the species count has increased from 1 to 2.

eBird on your smartphone: BirdLog Asia

In this example, we have complete list of four species at the end of a Travelling count of 0.1 Km, lasting 9 min, with a single observer.

Keep adding species as you see them; or increase the counts of existing species. Touch the green button to see only the species recorded.

You can save your checklist and come back to it later. Or, if you have an internet connection, you can submit the list right away.

From the home screen, touch “My Sightings” to see a list of the checklists you have submitted through BirdLog.

eBird on your smartphone: BirdLog Asia

Do remember that BirdLog is only an accessory to help you keep track of your sightings on the go. It is important to come back to your main account on the eBird website to check whether the lists uploaded through BirdLog are accurate, and to add any comments or descriptions that you didn’t want to type on your phone.

Initiatives using eBirdMany birding events, initiatives and projects use eBird as a data collection system. These include:

● The Great Backyard Bird Count, a global bird count with substantial Indian participation (14-17 Feb 2014).

● Common Bird Monitoring Programme in Kerala (14-17 Feb 2014).

● Big Bird Day, an Indian all-day birding event (16 Feb 2014).

● Bangalore Bird Count (16 Feb 2014)

● MigrantWatch, a project to study the timing of migration to and from India (year-round).

More slides coming soon..

● “spuhs” and “slashes”: what they are and when to use them

● A brief guide to bulk upload of lists from excel, etc.

Further information

Global

● eBird main website (www.ebird.org), and online help (help.ebird.org)

● eBird on Facebook and Twitter

India

● BirdCount India (eBird in India): Google group, Facebook, Twitter

● Further questions? Email birdcountindia@gmail.com