Knowing where birders are birding by viewing eBird personal locations alongside the current hotspots on a map is possible with Google Maps. The data is available from eBird's Explore page < https://ebird.org/explore > by downloading sightings by county < https://ebird.org/data/download > and pulling out the unique locations. I've created these for several counties in the Kingbird 10 region. The New York County database has 1,326,226 sightings as of Nov/2018.
As an eBird hotspot moderator I find this is a very helpful tool. If you look at Union Square Park you'll see a lot of personal locations associated with the SCOTT'S ORIOLE that paid a visit there at the beginning of 2008. If you look uptown at Isham Park near Inwood Hill Park there are a number of personal locations where a shared location will be created. If you have checklists for Isham Park you can easily submit a personal location as a hotspot suggestion < https://help.ebird.org/customer/portal/articles/1010518 >. Checklists submitted on personal locations *are not included* on any hotspots and won't appear on the Overviews, Bar Charts or Illustrated Checklists etc. These sightings *are included* on Overviews etc. at the county level and above. Only the owner of a personal location can merge these with existing hotspots. See details below (**) for instructions if you wish to do this. Here's a map for New York County showing *233 hotspots* and *4,903 personal locations*. The hotspots are the red markers. The personal locations are represented by black dots. Only the location name, ID, type and lat/lon are shown when clicking a marker. *Google Maps: New York County (Hotspots and Personal Locations)* <https://drive.google.com/open?id=1G3ObnxZagED3t2eGT5Gx6eYk4XZkYV2E&usp=sharing> I did an analysis of the number of personal locations created inside Central Park over a year ago and the number back then was over 1,000. ** If you wish to merge your personal location with an existing hotspot here are the steps: — Sign into eBird.org — Go to "My eBird" & select "Manage My Locations" in the right panel — At the bottom of the screen click "Show All" to see all locations on one page — You can sort the list by clicking on any of the headers: Location, Country, State/Province, County, Type* or # of Checklists — Select your personal location (it will show a letter "P" under Type*) by clicking "Edit" on the right side of the line — Select the "Merge" button and you'll see all nearby hotspots as red icons — Keep the checkmark for "Delete after merging" selected — Click the icon that best fits your location — ... now you'll see the hotspot description above the 'Merge' button along with the # of checklists you'll be merging — Click on the 'Merge' button — Answer Yes to the 'Yes or No' query All checklists for that personal location will be combined with the hotspot. -- Ben Cacace Manhattan, NYC -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
