Best Practices on eBird

Following their new partnership with eBird, BirdSoc SG outlines best practices for Singaporean birders to improve data quality. This guide explains how to provide accurate counts, document rarities with media, and utilize eBird’s tools to contribute meaningfully to global avian research and conservation.

As you may now know, BirdSoc SG has recently partnered with eBird and are now part of the team managing eBird in Singapore! Our team has been hard at work reviewing the filters and records of rare and range-restricted species in Singapore, and we felt that it would be a good time to share some good practices and habits we should all have when using eBird. Table of Contents 1 Why should I use eBird? Useful information about birds eBird Alerts Keeping of personal lists 2 Mobile App vs Desktop Site 3 eBird Best Practices Only key in species you are confident of identifying Provide accurate estimates of bird counts Include photos/videos/audio and comprehensive descriptions of rarities Input locations accurately Make use of List-building Checklists to key in pre-eBird life lists Work closely with eBird moderators Why should I use eBird? eBird is a free-to-use citizen-science database which contributes to research and monitoring of bird movements and abundance. By using eBird, all of us can contribute data to aid research and conservation of birds around the world! Apart from contributing to data and conservation, we ourselves can benefit in several ways by using eBird too! Useful information about birds Species pages give us tips on how to identify birds, and provide reference photos of birds of various sexes, morphs and ages (all of which are contributed by fellow eBird users!). Bar charts (which we have also embedded into our BirdSoc species pages) provide data showing the abundance of various species throughout the year. This gives you an idea of when to start looking out for a certain species! For example, a quick look at eBird bar charts would tell you that October to early-November is the best time of the year to look out for Brown-chested Jungle Flycatcher in Singapore. eBird species page for Brown-chested Jungle Flycatcher Species range maps show us the global distribution of birds, which can give us an indication of whether we might expect to see a certain species in different parts of the world. Zooming in to the range maps will even show you all the various spots in Singapore where other eBird users have seen a particular species before, and recent sightings within the past month would show up in red. You may also filter the data to see the sightings for a specific range of months or years. This is a highly useful tool if you are wondering where to go to see a specific target species! eBird species map for Brown-chested Jungle Flycatcher Filtering the date on the eBird species map page eBird Alerts eBird’s Rare Bird Alert (RBA) is an especially crucial tool for serious twitchers or for anyone hoping to see a rare bird species. This page gives a summary of all sightings of species deemed as rare in Singapore (be it throughout the year, or during a certain time of the year). Sightings are reviewed by our eBird moderators daily and will be listed as “confirmed” if there is sufficient evidence to back up a sighting, or left as “unconfirmed” if there is not enough documentation to prove the presence of a rarity. We seek your understanding that our eBird moderators may take some time to review your records on eBird, but we will try our best to do this as regularly as possible. Do also exercise your personal discretion when looking for sightings still listed as “unconfirmed” on the RBA, as we sometimes get sightings of misidentified birds. However, that is not to say that all records which are “unconfirmed” are not legitimate. Sometimes the observer may just take some time to upload the necessary documentation, or perhaps did not manage to take a photo of the bird. We often get sightings which are initially left as “unconfirmed” but later confirmed when other observers manage to connect with and photograph the bird. The Needs Alert is also a great tool for listers as it will show you whenever a species you have not yet seen in Singapore has been sighted. This would be useful for pursuing species for your life list. The Year Needs Alert is similar, except that it shows you when a species you have not yet seen for the year has been sighted. For those doing a Big Year, this would be a great source of timely information. For these tools, you may subscribe to email notifications (either daily or hourly), or alternatively (as I prefer to do so), go directly to the websites for direct access. These tools may be used anywhere around the world, and can help you as you go birding on your travels as well. eBird Rare Bird Alert page for Singapore Keeping of personal lists Apart from being an excellent source of information, eBird can also serve as a place where you can store information about your birding trips and adventures, including the date, time, location and list of birds seen during each trip. eBird can also help you to keep track of how many birds you have seen in a certain country, or even around the world! You can easily check out your birding numbers over the years via the “My eBird” page, and from there...