For those who are doing a "big" January or year in Ohio or for a county in
Ohio, you might want to check out a feature of eBird: "Needs Alerts."
http://ebird.org/ebird/alerts

On the above page toward the bottom you will find a place to enter your
region of interest.

Start typing a county in Ohio and then select the county in which you are
interested. Or you can simply type Ohio and get alerts for the whole state.

You will receive email alerts for species you have not seen in a particular
area. Once you report a species in the region, it will no longer appear on
this alert (even if it's rare). This is designed to help you learn about new
birds specific to you in a region of interest.

You can set up the alert to receive an email once a day or every hour -- I
suppose you would need a smart phone to get those hourly emails in the
field. Once a day is sufficient for me!

In the email you receive links which pop up a Google map showing you where
the bird was reported.

I'm already getting reports in Medina and Wayne counties of birds I have not
yet seen this year.

You can also use this feature when you travel out of state and want to know
where people are seeing birds in the area to which you are traveling. 

You can turn off a particular alert when you no longer want to receive
emails about it. 

Ken Ostermiller
Westfield Center, Ohio

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