Diana and other Cobirders,
Another very easy, but again not perfect, option, is to use BirdTrax on the CFO
website https://cobirds.org/
Go to the site, select the Birding Resources tab at the top of the page and
then Reporting Birds on the drop down menu. At the right hand side of the
resulting page, after a short scroll down (which gives you the option to read
COBirds posts, by the way) you will find the BirdTrax display listing all
“flagged” ebird reports. This is a virtually real-time report. As eBird
checklists are submitted with flagged birds requiring documentation, they
appear on this list.
Clicking on an individual observation allows you to pull up the entire list by
the observer including the documentation provided, any photos, etc. You can
also look for a green check, indicating that the observation has been confirmed
by the eBird checker. This is a really useful tool as it allows you to see
what birders never seem to have their observations confirmed—leading them to
move out of state. Or you can see the areas where the eBird checker is such a
slack-off that they never get around to checking any reports—leading you to
decide something like, well, I’m never going to bird in Arapahoe County again
if my rare birds never get reviewed!
This report is not a do-all for the species you might be interested in looking
for. If your bird of interest is not flagged on eBird, it won’t show up here.
For instance, last week I visited Cherry Creek and refound Long-tailed Ducks
and Rusty Blackbirds that had been reported by others. However, neither was
flagged on my eBird list and they would not have shown up on BirdTrax. (That
caused me to send an email to individually report them to Allison to get them
on the RBA, by the way. That shows how additionally useful that tool can be.)
I also use some of Diane’s suggestions for eBird Alerts to tell me what is
turning up in specific counties, even out of state counties if I’m planning a
trip. Right now I’m getting alerts for Cameron and Hidalgo Counties in Texas
allowing me to see if Roadside Hawk is still being reported and finding out
just where Betty Glass is birding now!
Seriously, using BirdTrax through the CFO website has one additional important
usefulness. As many of us use this tool, it increases the number of “hits” to
the CFO website. That, in turn, makes it more likely that out-of-state birders
find CFO when they undertake a search about birding in Colorado, helping the
CFO to fulfill part of its mission.
Bill Kaempfer
Now in Safety Harbor, FL
From: cobirds@googlegroups.com <cobirds@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Diana B
eatty
Sent: Friday, December 7, 2018 5:30 AM
Cc: COBIRDS <cobirds@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [cobirds] Thoughts on rare bird communications - a conversation
starter and a suggestion
Hi all,
Someone had asked me about something I said on this topic in the other thread -
about being able to get notices from eBird almost right away about rare birds -
so I thought maybe some others may also be unaware and benefit from the
information.
When you're logged in to your eBird account, go to My eBird.
Look down the right hand side of options until you see My Alerts.
In My Alerts you can set up alerts by county, state or country that send you an
e-mail about rare birds and/or birds you have not seen in that county yet
("needs"), and you can choose to have them sent hourly or daily. If you choose
the hourly option you get notified nearly as soon as something is entered into
eBird, so it is pretty quick. You do get potentially a lot of messages but at
least in Gmail it does nest ones from the same location together. In theory, a
lot of the work of an RBA list (but not all) might by generated by creating a
state level alert. I am not sure but I think sensitive species that result in
a hidden checklist might not come up in it but other things do. The e-mail
message you get includes a link to the check list in which the bird was
reported and map associated with it - so you can often see media if they have
added, see what other birds were reported, and use the map to get an idea of
where they were birding.
I learn about a lot of sightings this way that no one posts about in COBIRDS or
end up posted in COBIRDS quite a bit later.
Diana Beatty
El Paso County
On Thu, Dec 6, 2018 at 10:07 AM Carl Bendorf
<carlbend...@gmail.com<mailto:carlbend...@gmail.com>> wrote:
The current debate about rare bird communications in Colorado is very
interesting. First, there is the current discussion related to the Larimer
County Gyrfalcon. I'm fairly certain these exact same debates have taken place
in nearly every state and province. Many of us have all seen the rise and fall
of various technologies and communication systems (email chains, websites,
listservs, text alerts, etc.) but the thorny issues of what to report and when
to report remain. I doubt that technology will ever eliminate this aspect of
the debate and it's important we continue discussing the ethics of reporting
rare birds.
At the same time, there is a discussion underway about our methods of sharing
information in a timely and efficient manner. When I started birding in Iowa
the late 70's, we tried to create an organized phone tree with a paper chart
showing who would call whom and so on. Of course, the communication chain
often broke down when someone was out of town or just not at home to answer the
phone. A lot of people didn't even have home answering machines back then and,
of course, reporting a rare bird meant driving to the nearest pay phone and
dropping in quarters to make a call. In the early 80s, we started a rare bird
alert using an answering machine located in my parents' garage. Part of the
trick was finding a machine that offered an extended outgoing message as many
answering machines were limited to perhaps 30 seconds. We put the machine in
my parents' garage because they lived in a small town where the local phone
company offered a very low monthly phone bill for a second phone line. As
technology changed, these recorded rare bird alerts using phone lines have
essentially disappeared.
In my view, for many birders, Facebook has become the rare bird communication
platform of choice since it offers features like the ability to quickly post
photos/recordings, a role for a moderator(s), presence on both millions of
smartphones, laptops, and desktops, and the fact that millions of people are
already on their Facebook accounts every day.
A great example is the ABA Rare Bird Alert Facebook page
(https://www.facebook.com/groups/ABArare/) which has grown tremendously (18,000
members.) It's amazing to watch as bird sightings are being updated in real
time and you can even see groups of birders in the field using this page to
communicate with each other in real time. The page has at least 7
administrators meaning the work of monitoring the flow of info is being shared
and doesn't become a major burden. Heck, you can even livestream a video of
your rare bird to the entire audience.
One of the features of the (very helpful) COBIRDS Google Group is that the
content is generated from the individual submissions of contributors. I also
really like the compiled RBA report but the downside there is it requires a
compiler or compilers willing to put in the major effort of gathering,
collating, typing up, and posting of a report. As we've seen, it's going to be
increasingly hard to find someone who is willing to put in all that work.
Also, the effort of collating and posting a compiled RBA inevitably adds a
time-delay to reports.
This long missive is my suggestion that perhaps Colorado needs a dedicated Rare
Bird Facebook Page with multiple moderators. Again, the ABA is using this
model very successfully by having three separate Facebook pages. Each page has
a different defined purpose (this is critical, I think):
1. A general Facebook page for the organization for non-urgent information and
sharing of a general nature: https://www.facebook.com/birders/
2. An extremely successful page for helping people identify birds--this page
has a very clearly defined purpose and has nearly 34,000 members!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/whatsthisbird/ And, I understand a number of
extreme rarities have been “discovered” from the postings of photos from
contributors who couldn’t identify what they had seen/photographed.
3. The above-mentioned ABA Rare Bird Alert with about 18,000 members:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/whatsthisbird/
I imagine one of the points of view on this issue will be that not everyone
uses (or wants to use) Facebook. But this has been true of every form of
communication through the years. I’m sure at one time there were those who
preferred to communicate by letter and not by telephone followed by those who
preferred to communicate about rare birds by land line telephone and felt left
behind by the cell phone followed by those who were happy with a call on their
cell phone but objected to needing a smart phone, and so on. Consider also how
many local bird club newsletters used to include a compilation of recent rare
bird sightings in a printed/mailed newsletter. You don’t see that so much
anymore.
My suggestion to those who don’t wish to use Facebook is to recruit a
Facebook-using birding friend who will give them a call when a rare bird is
reported via Facebook. What do you want to bet that someday Facebook fades
away as it’s replaced by yet another kind of technology.
In conclusion, I think a Colorado Rare Bird Alert Facebook page could work
really well. A Facebook page offers all the latest options in terms of social
communication, immediacy, widespread use. The content would be user-generated
(and not require a volunteer compiler), and the moderating responsibilities can
be shared among a group of volunteers.
Please don't think I am advocating for an end to either COBIRDS or the COBIRDS
RBA report. Typically, where there are overlapping technologies and
communication outlets, there is a lot of cross-posting across the platforms as
a way to broaden the reach. And all of this is an evolution and not a
revolution!
I hope this helps to advance the discussion about how we can improve our
collaboration and sharing about Colorado's fantastic birding opportunities.
What do YOU think?
Carl Bendorf
Longmont
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