I was recently introduced to a mapping website that works well with eBird data by a Facebook post by Ted Floyd. Hamstermap.com lets you upload simple latitude/longitude data and display it on a map for quick visualization of all sorts of great things, in this case your personal eBird data. I’ll show you some of the maps I created, and … Read More
iPhone Digiscoping Pro Tip: Video Grabs
iPhones have dramatically expanded the number of people that are digiscoping, and successfully getting great photos while they are out birding, without having to lug a big SLR + lens around. With digiscoping adapter cases that fit most scopes, the barrier to digiscoping has been greatly lowered. Lots of birders are getting great images with less effort than they would … Read More
How to put Google Maps in eBird Species Comments
You’re probably getting excited… Â Google Maps in eBird checklists?? Â Yes, it’s real! Here’s an example: But before I let you in on how to do this, I should probably introduce myself. I’m Zachary DeBruine, a Hope College, MI Biochemistry major, also an on-the-side eBird-affiliated web developer (check out my website: www.birdventurebirding.com), a classical organist/pianist, and a birder. In the past, … Read More
eBird Hotspot Merging Tutorial
Sometimes you just gotta clean up your eBird locations. Maybe you’ve made personal locations in an area that now has a hotspot and want your data to contribute to the hotspot barcharts and species lists. Follow the tutorial below to learn how to do this.
Tips for eBirding the PA Migration Count
Each year on the second Saturday of May, Pennsylvania birders hit the forests, lakes and fields to find as many species as they can in each county. This is a great opportunity to get out and bird at the peak of spring warbler migration. The goal of the project is to gain a better understanding of the populations of birds … Read More
Huge upgrade to eBird maps
Recently, eBird released a major update to the maps in their Explore Data section. Now called Range and Point Maps, these are now fullscreen, overlaid on Google Maps tiles with lots of extra features. At full world level zoom, occurrences are calculated in blocks of varying shades of purple. As you zoom in, you eventually get to a point where … Read More
New eBird feature threatens to clog inboxes
Just today as far as I can tell, eBird launched a new feature that threatens to clog my inbox. It’s not enough that they already send out emails of recently reported ABA rarities and birds reported in Pennsylvania that I still don’t have on my life list. Now, you can also subscribe to these alerts on the county level. This is huge … Read More
eBird Tutorial- Merging personal locations to hotspots
One of the cornerstones of the whole eBird system is the idea of hotspots. Hotspots allow people to submit sightings for a common location and this combined effort results in more accurate bar charts for that location. Seasonal distribution for species at hotspots can be calculated based on hundreds or even thousands of checklists rather than the few checklists that … Read More