Monday, December 20, 2010

Yard and patch lists on eBird

I am thrilled to see eBird is continually rolling out new ways to explore and utilize data on a regular basis. In 2011, Twan and I will be conducting eBird classes - more information on that will be coming soon! For now, the following is directly from eBird in a post which can you find here.

Just in time for the New Year, we are releasing a new tool to allow you to keep track of your yard list and patch lists and compare them with your friends and other eBirders. For decades birders have kept cumulative lists and year lists for their yards, and favorite birding locales. Sharing these lists with your friends and seeing what they have recently seen is great fun and the focus of this new tool. Many of us have our favorite patches where we keep track of birds and almost daily and enter them into eBird. But it was hard for us to see what each other was seeing. With this new tool, it will be easy for all of us to see what we are seeing--indeed this new tool provides the first way to see a checklists submitted by other eBird users. Our new "Yard Totals" and "Patch Totals" will allow you to keep track of your lists and see what others are seeing either in your home county or around the world. In order to participate, you will need to sign up and define your yard or patches. To find out more, visit our page on Yard and Patch Listing Guidelines.

Personally, I am not much of a "lister", though I do enjoy counting what I have seen in my yard and love adding a new species. Now it will be easier for everyone to compare yard lists by month, year, or all-time. I don't know about you, but naming my "best" yard bird is easy since it's a Purple Gallinule!

This is just another reason you should be entering your sightings from anywhere and everywhere all the time. Help conservationists, researchers, and yourself - put those birds in eBird please! Even if it does not have all the features you crave now, it soon will.

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