Rob Ostrowski recently shared some excellent advice (I've reposted his
message below) for using shared personal locations to report popular
rarities without resorting to an eBird Hotspot.

I'll let you read his email below, but gist of his advice is to share
an empty checklist for the location with your own email address (see
details below!) then post that link to a local listserv or web forum
so others can "accept" the shared checklist & have that location show
up in their "My Locations" list.

Excellent idea! :)

If you're unfamiliar with the issue of messy rarity maps in eBird,
here are a few OH examples to compare with the map mentioned by Rob.

1. Black-tailed Gull:
     http://tinyurl.com/AshtabulaOH-BTGU-ebird-map
2. Kirtland's Warbler in Columbus:
     http://tinyurl.com/ColumbusOH-KIWA-ebird-map
3. Yellow-crowned Night Heron nests, Bexley:
     http://tinyurl.com/BexleyOH-YCNH-ebird-map

Good (e)Birding,
Paul Hurtado

Original post at
http://groups.google.com/group/ebirdtechtalk/browse_thread/thread/8aabe6cd773f963d
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From: Rob Ostrowski
To: eBird TechTalk
Date: Dec 23, 8:41 pm
Subject: Heavily Twitched Rarities and Personal Locations

The problem: a rare bird shows up where no hotspot exists, nor where
one should be created anyway. Many birders twitch the bird and each
create their own personal location.

The result: three dozen different map markers for the same bird and
spot - some wildly imprecise - some partially or entirely obscuring
the markers created by other observers.

Solution! Create a personal location at the spot where the rarity is
being seen. Using that location, create an incidental checklist with
zero species and "No" checked for the question asking if all species
are being reported. Share the checklist with your own email address.
From that email, copy the shared checklist URL and post it to your
local listserv. Anyone can then click on that URL, accept the blank
checklist, and by doing so, add it to their list of locations. Users
can then create a new checklist using that location, and every one who
does will have their observation under a single personal location.
Users should then delete the blank checklist using Manage My
Observations.

This makes for a much cleaner presentation and consequently a much
more readable and useful species map. It also keeps us from having to
create a hotspot for a random city street where a mega just happened
to show up. This is a method that Bill Hubick and I have developed in
Maryland with great success. I'm sure many of you have encountered
this problem and might have your own ideas on how to combat it, so
please share if that's the case.

The Maryland eBird/birding community has been nothing but thankful and
ecstatic to play along. For a recent success story, check out the map
for the Black-headed Grosbeak currently being seen in a small town on
the Eastern Shore of MD:
http://ebird.org/ebird/map/bkhgro?neg=true&env.minX=-79.75040205937495&env.minY=38.12374389755781&env.maxX=-71.84024580937495&env.maxY=41.15176464572806&zh=true&gp=true&mr=1-12&bmo=1&emo=12&yr=1900-2011&byr=1900&eyr=2011

And here's the accompanying post that I posted to the local listserv, MDOsprey:

"For those of you who use eBird and are planning to chase this
vagrant, Bill Hubick and I have put together a quick and easy way to
enter your observation while maximizing the cleanliness and
readability of the species map. Many of you are already familiar with
this process, which we implemented with several of our western
hummingbirds this fall. Well, we've
simplified it even further. By clicking the link below, you can accept
a blank checklist that's already plotted at the bird's location. After
accepting it, you will have this location in your drop down menu of
locations, as well as on your map. You can then proceed to create a
new checklist like you normally would (using the shared location), and
once you
delete this original blank checklist, you're all done.

This allows everyone's observations of this bird to be listed under a
single location, rather than have 30 different locations scattered
around the vicinity. It also keeps us from having to create a hotspot
for a location that might not ever be birded again once this bird
heads off.

So to accept the checklist and get started, please click the link
below. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask Bill and I.

http://ebird.org/ebird/shared?subID=UzkzODEwMDQ.&s=t

Thanks,
Rob Ostrowski
Crofton, MD
[log in to unmask]"

I hope this helps, and again, I would be interested in any feedback or
alternative methods you have come up with.

Rob

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