I know we'll hear from its numerous and ever-vigilant official
defenders, but I do want to point out some of the obvious limitations of
eBird for record-keeping purposes. No doubt a hundred years from now
it'll be much more informative, should more data accumulate,
and--importantly--someone includes data from years past. It'll always be
much more informative about robins than it will be about rarities, of
course, and that's to be expected.
        For example, I explored its data for Franklin County, Ohio, from the
year 1900 to the present. I got a list, with abundance histograms, for
278 species (possible in the county apparently, as there are no records
for most of them) and 19 "other taxa," which included stuff like
"warbler sp." and "sparrow sp.", but no taxa like warbler hybrids or
hypotheticals, or the reports that were excluded. Clicking around gives
a local map showing sites at which included species were reported, when,
and by whom. Not all the locations were accurate. A few, very few, of
these records go back well before the days of eBird.
        I knew most of the contributors, and trusted their identifications, but
if a lot of beginners start contributing, we are likely to see quite a
few mistaken reports of commoner species such as those Allen Chartier
describes. They are difficult to vet.
        I'm putting together a checklist for the county, for which I have thus
far 329 species, a lot more than eBird, and 27 "other taxa," but not
including vague and unsatisfactory categories like "shorebird sp." or
"blackbird sp." The eBird data in this chart show that the Canada goose
as common every month of the year, but not that prior to 50 years ago
(well within the limits of the search) it was pretty much exclusively a
spring and fall migrant here. They show the house finch as common
year-round, even though it's declined lately, and was absent here prior
to 1974. It doesn't include extinct and extirpated species. The county
has two records of varied thrush, but they do not appear in these data;
ditto for dozens of other records of unusual species. Why offer a search
that starts at the year 1900 when there are no eBird data for all
species, or for a period no longer than a few years?
        No doubt if eBird persists for the next hundred years and gets lots of
reports we'll have plenty of data to show how, if this should happen,
Canada geese once again became migrants only here, or if varied thrushes
became regular winter visitors, at least if ways are developed to show
bird abundances in space, season, and over the passage of time.
        What's missing from eBird is 200 years of data. No doubt these can be
supplied. Many of them will come from posts on mailing lists that later
appear in printed publications. I edited the Ohio Cardinal, the state
ornithological journal, for ten years, and going through such data and
those of regional and national counterpart publications (like N. Am.
Birds, etc.), will presumably always be how bird records are compiled;
they are not lost in cyberspace. And if eBird decides to include this
history, this is where they will find it (if my successors manage to
produce a Cardinal issue covering anything since the spring of the year
before last). EBird has a different and important purpose, the long-term
study of bird populations enabled by large databases of estimated
numbers and locations and seasons of every species. Just like offering
participants free listing software, its ambitions to quickly report
rarities is an inducement to join rather than part of its scientific
mission.
        Finally, I advise against posting one's eBird data directly to mailing
lists in unedited form. They contain much un-newsworthy data that are of
little interest to most readers, or at least lack meaning  divorced from
a larger context of thousands of observations eBird will have about
common species; readers will be more interested in the less routine
species seen, and your other observations beyond mere species and
numbers, such as behavior, weather, habitat, etc. A mailing list is a
poor database, but has other functions. Failing to report important
observations on mailing lists and instead only on eBird looks like a
disservice to the birding community.
        I'm a big fan of accumulating data on bird records, as many people
know. I have no problem that the eBird folks are playing the drums to
get participants, even if it is made to seem like the greatest thing
since sliced bread for almost every kind of data need. Their data will
be significant someday perhaps, but for the time being...not so much.
        One other thing. Some people think list postings are just for reporting
bird sightings, but that is far from the case. Look at Rob Thorn's
informative post from last night and imagine how eBird would have told
you that.
Bill Whan
Columbus

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