Here is my reply to ALL the replies form yesterday post...

Read Part One Here

Wow, what a great batch of comments, first I must commend Shyloh, Mike, and Kenny for publicly sharing their views.

The 11 anonymous posters had a varied mix of feelings and thoughts, and some obviously didn't want to share their names despite such strong convictions.  I want to respond to every comment so bare with me while I go through them...

Anonymous 1:

This seems like pretty blatant trolling--you say you don't care, but the time you took to post this with your feelings shows otherwise.  You say, "I know what I saw", which is fine, but if your sightings seem questionable, and have little details, their addition to the public data poll is a bit careless.  Like I mentioned, I am okay with people using eBird to just track their personal sightings for themselves--its a great tool for that.  However, for anyone that feels this way, I highly recommend going into preferences and checking the "hide my data" checkboxes for eBird Alerts, and Top 100 under the data privacy section.  If your sightings are just for your personal use as you say they are, there is no need to have them included in these very "gamified" areas of eBird as one other commenter noted.  My last criticism of your response was not having the time to enter a bunch of lists.  You have time to go birding, you have time to enter at least one list, and you have time to comment on this blog.  So time is on your side I would argue, and the little amount of time it takes to break 1 list into 3 or 4 seems well worth it this day in age.

Anonymous 2:

Great comment.  As I mentioned to Anonymous 1 this is the logical thing to do for others, and for yourself for a multitude of reasons.

Anonymous 3:

I see the first comment got you riled.  I have to say I disagree with your first point--eBird has many uses, and personal lists are a valid reason to use the program--its unfair to tell someone to use a notebook because they don't give a shit about science when the software is available for free and their data can be invalidated from the pool.  As to your second point, I do tend to agree, but if someone doesn't use it to help with the scientific effort, their data is so minuscule in the bigger picture, that in 150 years it really won't matter.  Those "Rare" birds they report, probably were mis-identifications, so their exclusion from the data pool is probably for the better.  And as to your 3rd point--haha, spot on my friend.

Anonymous 4:

I think in general in our local area--Utah, or even just northern Utah, the majority of eBird users are aware of what sightings are legitimate, and which are questionable.  I would be lying if I said I didn't brush off a number of alert species based of the observer.  In our community there are a handful of eBirders who don't so their sightings justice by taking photos of rarities they reports, or providing any meaningful information on the sightings for both eBird and their peers.  Before eBird it was much the same with the "RBA" or just on the listserv's. In birding credibility is earned not through documentation.  If a supposed great birder never documents his/her sightings, but constantly reports rarities, it begs to question the legitimacy of the sightings.  IF other give chase and can't track down the reports, it also leaves you to wonder.  But a photo, and re-chaseable birds create reputations and credibility amongst the community.  I expect every level of birder from beginner to expert to provide the same level of documentation in eBird for the sighting to really resonate with me.  This is completely aside of the scientific aspect of eBird, but more on the who is full of shit front.

Anonymous 5:

As I mentioned before, this is an opinion, and someone who just uses it for themselves is not breaking rules or being selfish---eBird has many uses.  I do believe people who use the applications should contribute more, but by no means do they have to, and by no means are they "doing it wrong".  But they should take care to remove themselves from alerts and listing.

Anonymous 6:

This is true--however an X can denote a count that is too high for a decent estimate.  Many birders don't feel comfortable, or can't estimate high counts of birds.  It sounds crazy but I have done this exercise with people to see how they estimate, and counts are wildly off sometimes.  If it wasn't an easy to count exact count, it may be best to leave it as X--this data is still important and useful.  I always try to put a number in, and in 99.9999999% of my individual sightings there is a count, whether exact or an estimate.   It definitely adds value even with estimations though!

Mike:

Woot an name and a face!  You are nuts, a nutty nut job, blah blah blah.  Just kidding of course, I just figured a name made it easy to call you out!  In general it seems like you feel how I feel.  I'm okay with people using the program how they see fit--I love when there are more details, and it lends credibility, and its better for the data pool.

Kenny:

You really are crazy... Crazy in a good way.  I think a lot of people miss the communal aspect of eBird--whether or not you want to be part of that community, you are if you report rare birds, and take part in the Top 100.  These things are far less important that high value checklists, but they have become a big part of eBird.  You said it best though, "We should all strive to be a better part of the birding community since who can understand the highs and lows and adventures of birding best than other birders?"  Providing better data inherently makes you a better part of the community--and our growing community here is proof of that!

Shyloh:

Where do I even start with you man... You're the dude.  You make the point right off the bat, "THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH SELFISHLY USING EBIRD!!!"  And Like I said, I agree--use it as you see fit, its there for many different reasons, so to each their own.

At the end of the day it really doesn't matter--like I told you, they're just birds man.  But I like to think that striving for a strong community, with birders that respect one another includes some great self checking, as well as community checking--which helps build a great data pool.  If someone reports rarities often, or even not so often, but rarely produces chase-able birds, or documents their sightings it effects not only the data pool, but chasers and listers--the community.  Regardless of how people use eBird, if you report a rarity on a checklist, you should expect some level of scrutiny from others, that's just human nature, and a big part of birding--and quality documentation and information helps eliminate some of that.

I would never tell anyone "this is how you should use eBird", but I sure as hell think there are ways we can all make our checklists more valuable not only for the community but for ourselves!  And I think that is a lot of what others are getting at too--just a tad more forceful.

Anonymous #7:

Shyloh, wanted to tell you "LOL"...

Anonymous #8:

Holy moly.  I will just say this, well played sir.  You hit the nail on the head.

Anonymous #9:

This is a great point with all others aside--as volunteers, having to wade through the muck, it sucks.  Whether a user cares about listing, or conservation, or whatever, a sighting that lacks documentation makes their lives harder.  I have talked to several moderators who routinely throw out specific users sightings because they are so riddled with mistakes, and absolutely no documentation that it's better for the data pool to just remove them.  I can see eBird eventually coming up with a way to block certain users from the data pool based of reviewer recommendations because of just that.

AND NOW MY FINAL THOUGHTS...

Let's just be real about our sightings for a second--on a personal level.  In the end on either side (community/data pool versus selfishness), it comes down to do you care about being right, or thinking your right?

I personally would rather be able to look at my sighting, have documentation, and be able to say I am 100% sure of that--and so is everyone else that sees it, than have a sighting with no documentation that begs the question, is this reliable data.  Simply putting a tick mark on a checklist for a rare birds shows a lack of understanding why that bird is rare/flagged, and the importance of documentation for data quality, especially when its not just a checklist for keeping a life list, but one used for building a data set for a location.  In the end the reviewer can simply invalidate the sighting, but then it seems counter intuitive to the whole process.  I don't think its asking to much for even a crappy photo--almost everyone carries a digital camera with them, and rarely are birds so flighty that even a distant, blurry, out of focus, or partially hidden bird can't be photo'd.  It seems so simple, and useful to the whole idea of building the data pool.

One solution to this is creating user groups in eBird for different types of players in the "game".  For the selfish, I use it to keep my life list, there could be a user type where all data is separate from the community pool.  Then there could be scientific users, and typical users, so on and so forth.  You could even go to a pay model which is a whole other blog post...

No matter what reason you watch birds, if you are using eBird you have made yourself part of that community, and we're glad to have, and I hope we all can work to make the community stronger in the long run! At the end of the day every birder is different, and uses eBird for many different reasons--I just hope that everyone realizes that we can all strive to make things better!

I recently posted a response to a thread on UBIRD about historical checklists and incidental counts in eBird.  There were 3 main topics I talked about.

1. Adding valuable sighting information to historical vagrants/rarities
2. Splitting larger generic checklists into smaller location specific checklists
3. Removing possibly bad data or in particular mis-identifications

The email didn't go in to a ton of detail on these topics, just my brief overview of why I felt it was important.  But I wanted to expand on that, and give a few real world examples of the issues, and what I've been doing to try and practice what I preach.  I've had a few interesting conversations about the subject, and gotten different perspectives and personal opinions on the matter.  It brought up a couple things that I thought were also worth talking about.

I talked to several people who mentioned their #1 reason for using eBird was to keep track of their sightings for themselves above all else.  The data after all was being provided free of charge by the birders/observers, and that in itself was valuable despite the quality of the data.  It would be a lie if I didn't say that was also WHY I initially started using eBird back in 2004. It was an easy way to track my own sightings, I was after all filling up several notebooks a year with lists and this was an easier way to keep those lists, and manage them.  For this reason I was quite cavalier with my locations.  I often did counts for entire days for a county, or along 100 mile section of road.  My lists were less for science than my personal needs.

There are in fact a lot of eBird users who ONLY use eBird for this very reason, and that's perfectly acceptable--it's a great tool for that--but it's also so much more.

Now I also talked to one person who mentioned that sometimes they just put in a list for a whole weekend because they wanted to keep track of the birds they'd seen, but they'd visited 10 places, seen 150 birds, and didn't want to take the time to go enter individual checklists for every place they went.  That's another one I could relate to--I've done exactly the same.  Creating and submitting checklists can be time consuming, and for some they just don't have the time to get granular. Some data is better than no data after all.

Cape May Warbler from Lytle Ranch... Less than 5 ever reported in Utah.

And yet one other person who kept very detailed lists of species seen never added details, photos, or any information to their lists.  In their opinion they were already providing high quality data, and felt that the need to add more details was benign.  In the long run there will be so much data that these details won't matter--the pictures, notes, etc. And again, I have done the same, I get it, and in some cases I whole-heartedly agree.  I have heard the argument that in 150 years someone might be looking back at some data and see a report of a Cape May Warbler in Utah with no associated data.  The report was validated but without any supporting data because I was experienced with that species.  But how would those people know who I am?  Honestly, I hope I leave some type of impact on birding in Utah in my life time, whether small or big--I would hope with a little digging someone can figure out who I was--especially in this digital age.  But I digress, I also see the flip side, and that's where this whole blog post got started.  Let's talk about those bullet points.

Adding valuable sighting information to historical vagrants/rarities.

Over the years I have slowly become more and more methodical with my checklists.  This means being more granular with locations, and more detailed with subspecies, and adding specific details about flagged sightings.  This is a personal choice, to try and make my checklists not only more valuable to researches, and those using the data for scientific purposes; but also, for other birders to be able to glean them for data, and for me personally to be able to look back and see details about a sighting all in one place.  As of the writing of this I have submitted 3226 eBird checklists for Utah.  As that number grows it becomes harder and harder to look at specific checklists with flagged sightings and remember all the details. So thus started the drawn out process of going back and adding those details.

Utah's 1st documented Bay-breasted Warbler

I started with my taxonomic life list for Utah and started working my way down.  I specifically wanted to concentrate on adding details to species with less than 25 reports ever for Utah--with more details being added to the rarest species--those typically with less than 5 reports ever.

Utah's 1st Yellow-bellied Flycatcher 

In cases where I had photos, videos, or recordings I embedded those in.  Photos linked to my website, videos from Youtube, and recordings from Xeno-canto if available.  If I felt the photos were sufficient for the report I often kept the notes short.  On some species I added a small blurb, and on others complete paragraphs of texts that I cut out of emails I pulled from the original reports, or from Records Committee Reports from some of my oldest sightings.  I didn't remember all the details from many of these reports so going back and searching in UBIRD, and other listserv archives for my original posts was really helpful.  It also saved me from writing in details that might not be as accurate otherwise.

Utah's 1st Pine Warbler

I soon realized I had hundreds of such checklists, so it was somewhat tedious--but the end results were lots of photos added into the data pool, and some detailed (and not so detailed) write-ups of species that otherwise were originally note-less.   In all so far I've added details for 36 species, on 52 checklists.  Some of the more notable were details for eBird Utah's first Western Gull, Pine Warbler, Eastern Meadowlark, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Cape May Warbler, Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, Gilded Flicker, Bay-breasted Warbler, Black-billed Cuckoo, and Little Gull..  Despite the time that went into it, it was fairly easy to do, and well worth it.

Splitting larger generic checklists into smaller location specific checklists

I recently flipped through a field notebook from one of my summers working in Wyoming during college.  I had 1 or 2 checklists for most days.  One list was the survey I ran that morning, and the other was the rest of the birding that day.  In some cases I drove over 100 miles on these days and went through every typical habitat type found in western Wyoming.  In eBird these lists would look ridiculous--but none-the-less I have a few.  Luckily most of my college years checklists from Wyoming are not in eBird yet. But I have dozens form the early years of eBird that I did enter like this.  Some are an entire day count for 16 hours at a lake in the Uinta's.  The checklist covers shrubsteppe, aspen, conifer, and mountain reservoir habitats though.  I probably traveled 10 miles during the day and the list could be broken down more.  These are hard though, because some of the birds cross habitats, and I don't remember what was in which necessarily.  For these it's really best to just leave as is--its 1 checklist out of 1,000's, in the bigger picture that data is "close enough" that it won't look too out of place--and if it is the reviewer can invalidate the list.

Blue Grosbeak from 12,000' in the Uintas??? I think not.

But what about a 40 mile drive from Vernal to Hacking Lake in the Uinta's?  It looks odd when a checklist has both Blue Grosbeak and Pine Grosbeak together.  Or Red Crossbill and Lesser Goldfinch.  Or Dark-eyed Junco and Marsh Wren (in August).  During the early years I did this often--one checklist for the entire length of a road.  The best recommendation is going through and removing the species that don't fit the greater picture, and breaking them out into a separate list at a better location for them.  Or break it down in to as many lists as you feel comfortable doing.  In this case I broke 1 list into 5.  Vernal, the lower section of Sagebrush, Aspen Forests, Conifer Forests, and finally Hacking Lake.  It's still not perfect, but it fixes one bad list.

Pine Grosbeak should never be on the same list as Blue Grosbeak in Utah...

One of the most common offenders of this is the "Antelope Island State Park" checklist submission.  There are numerous hot spot points for the park, but many folks do one list for 5 or 6 visited spots.  This means you have Snowy Plovers and Godwits on the island.   Others mistake the causeway spot for the whole park and then you end up with Warblers, Tanagers, and Orioles on the causeway.  I tend to do a list for the causeway and each major location I go to on the island.  Sometimes I leave with 7 checklists--but its super granular and useful.  This is one thing I have made a better effort at in recent years and try to be as specific as makes sense for the places I'm going.  With apps like BirdLog it now makes it easier to avoid this, allowing you to quickly create a new list on the fly while in the field as you go from habitat to habitat, or location to location.

Removing possibly bad data or in particular mis-identifications

This is one of the hardest for most people to do--myself included.  Going back and looking at lists and saying, that's not right, or I'm just not sure anymore, can be difficult for most birders.  I went back and removed a number of my old Short-billed Dowitcher reports and changed them to Dowitcher sp.  I did leave ones that had photo evidence, but ones without were mostly changed.  I went back and took Least Bittern off an Ouray list I had form my younger years.  At the time others were reporting them, and I thought I saw one.  But looking back and having seen that species since it was a no brainer to remove it.  In some cases if it doesn't seem right, its safer to just change it outright.  Leave a note, change it to a spuh, with details about why you changed it.  But if you aren't sure this is a good way to clean up old lists.

Dowitcher sp? Or one of each?

There are some that I probably should change, but I can't bring myself to do it.  Sometimes you believe so much in a sighting you had, despite lack of evidence, experience, etc, you just stick with it.  You very likely are correct with your belief, and in many cases the data has already been invalidated in eBird, so for your personal use what does it matter?  It's all about finding the right balance for how you use eBird.

Whether your a hard-core eBirder, a casual user, or just someone who keeps basic lists via the awesome resource, there are things we can all do to make our lists more useful--for everyone.  And I'm sure there will be more ways in the future, and things will change, and improve.  eBird has come along way in the last 10 years, and so has the quality and amount of data.

How do you personally make your checklists more useful?  Share below, and help others improve the data they're submitting!

Carl Ingwell and I did some birding and hiking around Natural Bridges National Monument July 5th-7th. This is a great area of Utah to explore and I highly recommend you finding your way down there.   The desert canyon washes and the pinyon/juniper habitats make for some great birding. The beauty and power of the entire region is spectacular. Below are some photos/videos of my personal highlights of the weekend (including an audio quiz) followed by a sad story about a Black Bear that had been hit by a car.

Violet-green Swallows were the only swallow we saw and they were everywhere

This was too high on the wall for me to get to and see if it was actually my ancient hand print...

Nice views all around 

Petroglyphs were on lots of the canyon walls. I have never seen so many

Cassin's Kingbirds were around but not too abundant; this is the only one we saw

Spotted Towhees were everywhere in the canyons

You could have a great yard list if you lived here

The Hite Overlook in the Lake Powell area

Storms were in the area all weekend and I recorded the below video of a flash flood coming down the wash of a canyon. It was pretty intense and I can see why they warn you about how fast they can come.

We had the pleasure of running across a group of these birds being very vocal in a canyon. Can you guess what they are? Put guesses in the comments and I'll reveal with a video that shows one of the birds in a few days. 

See the above video of a Peregrine Falcon - as Keeli guessed

The whole weekend felt a bit surreal. Some of it was the desert heat and being around Native American ruins and thinking about the way that they lived. But I think both Carl and I were pretty affected Saturday morning by seeing a Black Bear that had been hit by a car. The bear was wearing a thick radio collar and we came upon it shortly before a ranger pulled up and made a call to report it as we stood there looking at it, sort of stunned. Later in the day, when we drove back to the same area, the bear had been moved, leaving an unfortunate trail of its history on the pavement. There were also several vehicles parked on the side of the road including a woman with an animal carrier, a DWR official, and some BLM employees. We asked what was going on and were told they were looking for a cub that had been unfortunately orphaned. They didn't seem to want to talk too much with us so we weren't able to get many more details but later on, they were gone, so we hope the cub was found and taken to be cared for somewhere. I have never seen a bear in the wild before so this was an unfortunate and sad first encounter. I did snap a picture of the deceased bear and for those interested in seeing it, you can click on the link: HERE. This is kind of morbid, but I personally look at it and think how awesome this animal must've been in life, living in the desert and rearing a cub. It reminds me how much is going on out there that we don't often see.

When I first moved to Utah 7 or so years ago, I was excited to head into the mountains and get exploring. However, I was honestly pretty naive when it came to understanding the line between adventurous and just plain stupid. Luckily through good friends like Carl Ingwell, Tim Avery, and Colby Neuman, as well as countless other people, and lots of personal experience, I feel like I've wised up at least a bit. For example, I don't think you'd catch me chasing a Bobcat into a thicket to get a closer look anymore. Yup; I did that in my first year here. Sure, I'd try for a look again, but I now understand a bobcat could quite easily rip my face off if it were so inclined. I seem to attract Moose like sugar-water attracts hummingbirds. I don't get it, but they seem to always find me. It was right around the time I saw my first and it showed no fear of ME that I realized the inhabitants of the mountains of Utah are to be enjoyed, but they are to be respected. These mountains have become one of my favorite things in the world. If I could hike every day, I would. But I have learned that the thing I love about them - their raw wild energy- can sometimes remind you of your own insignificance and mortality. I had one such reminder moment this day.

After getting home from work today, I opted to head up to a spot I haven't hiked since last fall. It's a location I found east of Little Dell Reservoir and below Big Mountain Pass. It is a seemingly seldom used trail that winds up the mountain north of the main road and then heads east towards Big Mountain and back down past some beaver dams. From here, you can bush-whack your way through 100 yards or so of trees and reach a more used trail. The whole route can't be more than a mile - if that - and has in the past produced Dusky Grouse and an assortment of other common mountain species to view - as well as Deer, Moose, and Beavers. Today, as I was hiking along towards a portion that transitions from open mountainside to aspen grove I heard what sounded like a bark. It sounded sort of like a muzzled dog. I kept hiking. The sound came again, and closer. I was initially intrigued. The sound was coming from above me on the mountain though and all I could see up there was thick habitat. I kept telling myself I was sure it was a dog and there was probably someone with it and whatever, no big deal. I figured, whatever, move on and keep hiking. So I wound through the aspens and towards the beaver dams. The sound came again. This time much closer. Now I was annoyed/perhaps a little intimidated. Sounded still like a dog but like one that was muzzled/muffled in some way. Not like a normal bark. I started moving quicker. The sound followed. I jumped over a stream to get to the other side of the beaver dams. Surely whatever it was wouldn't follow me. Well, it did. The sound was now just on the other side of the dams, coming from the trees. I will admit, at this point, I made sure my bear spray, which I had taken out, was in my hand, with the cap off and ready to go. Then, I high-tailed it to the bush-whacking portion and my scraped up legs are evidence to the lack of care I took here. I don't know what the hell was going on, what it was, why it was following me, but it seemed best to get out of Dodge. I think it probably was a dog. My memory tells me I have seen evidence of an old shanty hut up on the mountainside in this area so it could very well be that someone dwells there with a muffled sounding canine. However, I'm not sure this is any more comfort to know than if it was an angry bear. Either way, the mountains kicked my ass tonight and I was reminded that you never know what's around that next corner. But I suppose that's why I keep going back for more.

I was able to get some video of the sounds. You be the judge and let me know what you think. Dog? Chupacabra? Big Foot? It's the first video posted below. 

The 2nd video is one I took a couple of years ago when a moose followed me all the way to my car at Silver Lake and made this moaning sound (towards the end of the video). It was another night when the mountains reminded me that they own me and I am merely tolerated by them. I'm sure we all have our stories where our hearts race a bit more than usual on a hike. Let's hear some good tales. 

6/14/13 - Northeast of Little Dell Reservoir

9/1/11 - Silver Lake

If you know me, you know I am a huge eBird advocate.  I think its a great tool, and has only gotten better with time (as any good software with a large user base and a developer that takes feedback should).  There are still a few things I would like to see when it comes to exploring data--specifically ALL reports of a species, whether the report has been verified or not.  This would be very easy to show, and very useful to many birders.

A first fall female Cape May Warbler--whether or not the photo is conclusive, it's still a report worth being able to see.

My reasoning is simple: There are numerous checklists with rare birds that have not been verified--but the report very well may be correct.  This means that when exploring data on eBird maps there are species that don't necessarily show up on the maps in areas they have been reported.  And some of those reports are valid reports, but for any number of reasons the eBird reviewer has decided not to verify it.

I have seen 3 Cape May Warblers in Utah in the past 20 years, yet none show up on the eBird maps.

Now wait a second Tim, that reviewer is the one making sure the data pool isn't a mess? Yes, I do agree, but I also agree that if done correctly the information would be beneficial to everyone looking at it, and still be able to show what sightings are perhaps legitimate, versus ones that aren't.  Talking specifically about maps, I will give you an example

Let's say you want to look at HERMIT WARBLER sightings in Utah.  This species is rare but annual fall migrant.  It cuts across the southwest corner of the state in mixed Ponderosa woodlands--the Kolob area and Oak Grove Campground are two areas where this bird is reported.  Although the species is annual, there are very few verified reports in eBird.  This may just be because very few people report them--but let's pretend they are reported more frequently, but with questionable or no documentation, and the reviewer doesn't feel comfortable approving them.

This was the only photo I had of Kolob--during prescribed burns one summer.

At a top level when you come in with the maps if there were locations with verified and unverified sightings they would still show up how they currently do--as purple blocks.  If there were locations that had only unverified sightings, they would show up as red blocks.

How I envision unverified reports showing up from a high level.  Locations with ONLY unverified reports will show up red.

When you zoomed in to the actual location points and clicked on one, not much would change.  It would still display everything as is, with the verified reports showing up as they currently do. The major change would be that at the end of the list is a link that reads, "view unverified reports".

What you would see when you click on a way point--the same as the current view, with a link to pull up the unverified reports.

If you were to click on the link, the list of unverified reports would show up below the verified reports in the same fashion--however nothing would be bold so that it doesn't have as much prominence as the verified reports.

How the unverified reports would appear with the verified.

This would accomplish two things.  First, it would give a complete visual of the ACTUAL reports of a species in a  given area, or specific location.  In doing so it would make the data more valuable so that users could view the whole picture.  Separating the unverified reports out leaves the interpretation of the data to the user.  The majority of birders could look at that and be able to determine the obvious reasons reports weren't verified--versus reports that seem to actually make sense that weren't verified for a random reason here or there.  Secondly, and this will sound bad to some people, but for certain species that are over reported, and seemingly misidentified time and time again, it will make the observer more aware in a public space of their continued mistakes.  A lot of people put species into the database over an over that are misidentified.  A lot of these are probably common species, and it goes unnoticed, because in the grand scheme of things it falls into an acceptable margin of error.  However for other species, that maybe are continually reported, it will be an eye opener.  If you are the only birder who ever reports LEAST TERN from Lee Kay Ponds, and you seemingly report them 2 to 3 times each year, but the other 99% of birders only see one there every 5 years--that will be obvious in the data.

Not everyone self-polices, myself included.  I have numerous reports that have not been verified by the reviewer for some reason or another--however, many of those reports come with valuable information, some with undeniable photo proof of a species, and SHOULD be accessible with the rest of the data in the public records--not through some awful report you can generate from another website that is wildly impossible for your average person to look at and make sense of.  I would rather have my unverified sightings visible to the public, and let the users make their minds up about the sightings based off the notes and photos I provide.

How a location with only unverified reports would show up when the way point is clicked.

In some instances this is important for birds that have never been reported otherwise in the state, or there have been a handful of reports but no verified sightings in eBird.  A prime example is GILDED FLICKER.  This species has now been reported a handful of times from the Mojave Desert in southwest Utah, but none of the reports have been verified in eBird--despite written descriptions and photos of the birds.  Now I don't know the reason for these reports not being accepted--but it is a disservice to other observers and in this case hides important information about the possible extreme northern limit of this species.

Female Gilded Flicker flying past me.  Other photos show other field marks for this species as well.

Not everyone is going to agree with this approach--specifically folks who have lots of unverified reports and might feel uncomfortable with that being out there.  Others, perhaps those in the strictly scientific side of things, might also not like this approach because they feel the person doing the verifying job is weeding out BAD data.  And I see both points.  However, this database is open to the public, and the data should all be easy to read an interpret for all reports.  The reviewer will weed out the majority of bad sightings, and the user will be able to look at that data and make their own assumptions based off of it.

Just my two cents, on something I would like to see to make the data pool even more useful.  What do others think about this kind of idea?  Or do others have ideas that would improve the user experience or data provided in some way or another?

When I was 13 my dad gave me his 1970's Pentax SLR with a 200mm lens.  It was my first real camera, and one that in the 70's was top of the line.  It was all manual, and made me learn how to actually use a camera, and not just point and shoot.  At 200mm it was hardly the ideal weapon for taking pictures of birds, but as a budding birder it was the perfect companion to at least try.

The first Camera I ever used to photograph birds--a Pentax K1000 with a 80-200mm lens.

It weighed a ton--not literally, but it was all metal--the way things used to be made--not the plastic junk with some metal pieces we get today.  I remember thinking it was a really good camera because of how heavy it was.  For a 13 year old shooting pictures with an SLR was a pricey hobby.  I could pick up 4 rolls of film at 200 or 400 ISO with 24 shots per roll for anywhere between $6-10.  It would cost another $12 to get the photos processed afterwards.  So if we went camping for a weekend I could easily spend $25 just for a handful of pictures--all of which by my current standards would end up in the trash can.

I bought more of these 4 packs as a kid than I care to remember.

But I loved it.  The first birds I remember photographing with it were Rufous Hummingbirds at a makeshift feeder my dad made out of a Coca-Cola can and a margarine bowl, that hung from the window cover on our family trailer.  We would go camping and fishing on the Indian reservation north of Roosevelt multiple times every summer, and come July and August the hummingbirds were abundant.  Trying to capture them in flight was the ultimate challenge for me, and one of those memories ingrained form my childhood.

Rufous Hummingbird at a makeshift feeder taken with a Pentax K1000 and 80-200mm lens.

A couple years later with the help of my parents I bought my first SLR, a Canon EOS Elan IIe, and a Tamron 70-210mm lens with a Quantaray 2x teleconverter.  Again, it wasn't the ideal tool for taking pictures of birds, but it was a workhorse Camera I used to take pictures of everything--including my only trip to southeast Arizona in 1998.

Broad-billed Hummingbird in Arizona taken in 1998 with a Canon EOS Elan IIe film camera.

I had that SLR from 1997 until it was stolen from my car one day while birding in Parley's Gulch in 2004.  I wasn't so upset about the camera being stolen, only that it had pictures of one of the only Flammulated Owls ever seen on the Great plains--luckily that year I also got my first ever digital point and shoot and managed to get a few shots with that camera as well.

Flammulated Owl at Chico Basin Ranch, Colorado in 2004. At the time this was only the 2nd report of this species from the Great Plains.  This was taken with a Fujifilm 3.2 megapixel camera through a spotting scope.

When the insurance money for my camera came, I doled out a little extra and picked up the Canon EOS Digital Rebel, which had been out less than a year.  I think I paid close to $1000 for that camera, and picked up a 70-300mm lens to go with it.  It was an incredible step forward in technology, and image quality, and opened up a whole new world for me.  I took it on its inaugural voyage with a road trip to Oregon, where I went photo crazy.  Never had I been able to take photo after photo after photo, and not have to worry about paying for more film or printing. It was amazing!

Red Crossbill taken at Cape Arago State Park, Oregon in 2004, with a Canon Digital Rebel (1st gen), and a 70-300mm lens--a major leap in technology for me.

The following winter I took it with me to Duluth, Minnesota to photograph Great Gray Owls that were irrupting in greater than normal numbers.  You wouldn't know it by the image quality, but the photos were taken with a $150 mostly plastic lens--to this day these are some of my favorite photographs.

Great Gray Owl at Sax-Zim Bog, Minnesota in January 2005, taken with my first Canon digital SLR and an inexpensive $150 mostly plastic 70-300mm lens.

After that trip my dad bought me a Canon 100-400mm lens near graduation time--with the expectation that I pay him back for the lens, which there was no way I could afford as a college student.  He never made me pay pay back... Its one of those things that I look back and think how wonderful my parents were to me, giving me the opportunities in life to do the things I wanted to.  They knew at that point I was interested in wildlife photography as a career, and wanted to help me how they could.  Although it never panned out, it became one of my greatest passions and something that without their help I probably would never have been as into it as I am.

House Wren taken in July 2005 in southern Wyoming, with a 100-400mm Canon L lens.

Since then I think I have gone through 4 or 5 digital SLR bodies, I still have the 400mm lens and will never get rid of it, but have switched mostly to a Sigma 150-500mm lens--my second big Sigma lens--for my day to day bird photography.  

Bearded Mountaineer photographed near Cusco, Peru in August 2012 using a Canon t3i and a Sigma 150-500mm USM lens, with a Canon Speedlite 580EX II Flash.

For the last year I have watched as my photo collection on timaverybirding.com climbed past 9,000 images and slowly crept in on number 10,000.  This week I finally uploaded my 10,000th photo.  I didn't choose number 10,000, and had all but forgotten about it while I was out photographing this week.  I then noticed the photo counter on my site said 10,009.  I went in and looked--surprised by what shot it actually was.  It wasn't necessarily a special photo I had hoped to upload as number 10,000, but now that its done, I won't soon forget.

Willets and Marbled Godwit coming into land.  The 10,000th photo uploaded to timaverybirding.com.

From humble beginnings almost 20 years ago, to a Marbled Godwit with a couple of Willets at a pond in Lehi on a windy Thursday afternoon.  Those 10,000 shots are cut down from a much larger number of images.  Going back to my first DSLR I estimate I have taken nearly 400,000 images in digital format in the past 10 years.  That means that of the original images taken only 2.5% ever reach the web. 

My cameras through the years...

Another way to look at that is if I were to have bought all the film for that in 24 exposure ISO200 film in 4 packs at an average of $8 per pack, I would have bought 4167 four packs of film, and spent $33,336 on buying the film.  Breaking it down even more, that is 16,668 rolls of film... and to get that processed at an average of $3 a roll at Costco, would have cost $50,004.

So in just 10 years to be able to have captured the images I did I would have had to have spent $83,340 on a hobby. Wow.  Now granted, I never would have had the machine gun trigger finger I have with my current setup, and I would have been much more conservative with my use of film.  That means I likely wouldn't have put together the collection I managed to at this point in my life.

This includes photos of about 484 species of North American Birds, 155 species from Peru, 143 species from Costa Rica, and 42 species from Mexico--there is some overlap from country to country, but all in all I have taken pictures of about 750 species of birds.

View my gallery with more than 10,000 photos

Aside from the birds there are hundreds of photos of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, butterflies, dragonflies, and other insects.  And almost 1,000 pictures of scenery, sunsets, weird weather, the moon, and various other wonders of our world.  Not to mention all the adventures with my lovely wife over the past 5 years.  Memories to last a life time, and at a fraction of the cost that film would have translated to.

Memories to last a lifetime at a fraction of the cost.

So here is to the next 10,000, who knows what that will be and where it will happen.  All I do know is I can't wait to get there and see what stories happen along the way.

UPDATE:

The video was removed from youtube this afternoon with a note on the video claiming:

THIS VIDEO IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE DUE TO A COPYRIGHT CLAIM BY DELL SCHANZE

Here is a screenshot that was still available:

"Not-so-super Dell's foot and a Barn Owl he attacked."

I posted this to the UBIRD listserv last night, but wanted to have it reach a broader audience.  This was on KSL.com last night, and has been all over the local news the last 24 hours. Dale Shanze is a failed businessman, humiliated wannabe politician, gun-nut, and pretty mush just a despicable human being.  If the previously mentioned things weren't obvious enough check out the video below that surfaced this week of him chasing a Barn Owl for over 7 minutes in his para-motor-whatever-the-hell-this-contraption-is.

Since the youtube video was pulled I am now linking to the KSL video:



Aside from this, he was previously seen chasing gulls along the south shore of the Great Salt Lake, and last year I watched as he chased hawks around at Point of the Mountain.

I hope this ape gets what's coming and slapped with a fine, and jail time.

On Easter Sunday, Sam and I decided to take a drive out to Golden Spike just to get out of the city.  I talked her into heading that way via East Canyon and the Henefer Greater Sage-Grouse Lek.  We left Salt Lake shortly after 6am and got to Henefer before the sunrise. I arrived a little later than I had hoped, but was shocked at what I saw when we hit the Summit/Morgan County line.  There were 10 female grouse along the south edge of the road in Summit County.  There were no grouse in the road, but on the north side of  the road in the area where I normally watch the grouse display were 8 vehicles parked up to the fence .  There was one van on the south side of the road where for years we have parked and watched the birds.

More vehicles than I have ever seen at the lek, parked right where normally birds are displaying.

I pulled off to the south and for a moment sat confused and befuddled.  Why were all these cars parked where the grouse often displayed?  I thought about parking where I normally would by the corral, but then I would be facing no birds, and have a wall of vehicles blocking the birds that were in the fields to the north. Instead I pulled in behind the convoy of folks that were presumably mostly photographers--there was a row of 500+mm lenses projecting from windows. I wondered how many of the folks were here for the first time and jsut following the lead of other vehicles.  I had never thought to park on this side of the road, becuase it was apparent when you arrived most mornings that the birds were on the road. I was upset that in the past I could watch these birds form as close as 20' and see their display up close.  Now the closest birds were over 150’ out into the field

The "sage specks" barely visible at 500mm in my view finder

As I sat there longer I had mixed feelings.  For one the birds were displaying out in the field, and there were plenty of males and dozens of females.  Because they were out in the field, they weren’t on the road, meaning they weren’t going to be killed while trying to mate.  It was a silver lining.  But at the same time it was not the experience I had come to expect up here.  As with previous posts about Henefer I always have mentioned parking as far to the south and east as possible, but in the case of this morning everyone was as far north as they could go, north of the actual pull off in an area I would consider off limits to vehicles.  It was directly where I have watched birds displaying year in and out.

 This male grouse had plenty of admirers... maybe the fields are the best place for lekking...

Don’t get me wrong, I fully expect people who want to see and photograph wildlife to go to places like this and enjoy it--I am actually all for it.  The more people learn about birds like this, the more aware they might be of our impact on them.  But its hard to watch something change so drastically in just a few years.  My biggest worry is it turning into (and excuse my French), the shit show that Farmington has turned into surrounding the Eagles.    I had several people email me privately, including folks who have visited from Wyoming in the past, expressing their frustration with the situation too.  Some complained abotu the actual people, getting out of their cars, letting kids run around, and even one person letting a dog out of teh car.  I was shocked to hear that.  When I went I saw none of that--everyone was in their cars and being respectful of the birds--it was just where they were parked that had me bothered.  Take a look at the difference a few years makes in how close the birds were...

Here is how close the birds were in 2006:

And again in 2007:

It’s hard to believe those birds were in the same place as my best shot from this morning:

In the end I actually felt like it may what's best for the birds.  I would rather watch them from a distance where they can display safely away from the cars, then watch them get hit by drivers not paying attention.  But if the only reason they are displaying where they are is because cars are parking where they want to display, then that is an issue. When you visit the lek, please be mindful of the birds, and just use common sense.  I still advocate parking to the southeast, and giving the birds as much space as possible--and if you are like me, you probably won't want to head up there on a weekend with the growing crowds.