I didn't find the argument in the ebird page entirely convincing, because they assumed one uses a single X for an unknown number. What some of us used to do in slightly less automated days was, when we were unsure of exact numbers, but had a sense, to post X for a handful of birds, XX for birds in the tens or scores, XXX for birds in the hundreds, XXXX for birds in the thousands. I never got higher than than :-). Posting like that gave a sense of order or magnitude without fudging on numbers. I'd still like to do that if it were available, which it's not, apparently. On a recent trip to Montana, I tried to post XXX Northern Pintails, and it was rejected, Oh well, I'll go with what they want... On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 12:07 PM, Ian Lynch <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Thank you for this reminder. What the article didn't answer for me was > whether it would be better to leave out a common species that I know I've > encountered on the trip than to include it as an X. Especially on a busy > migration day I'm sure many of us skip over many abundant species as we > "look past" them to find the rarities. There are plenty of times that I > simply am not interested in estimating how many Herring Gulls were around > while I was checking out the ducks, for instance. > > I strive to provide complete lists with counts since I appreciate the value > of the contribution. Still, there are those days... > > Ian Lynch > Mentor, OH > > ______________________________________________________________________ > > Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. > Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/ > membership.php. > Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. > > > You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: > listserv.miamioh.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS > Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask] > -- -------------------------------------------- Steve Cagan, photographer [log in to unmask] www.stevecagan.com www.elchocomining.net http://elchocomining.tumblr.com www.pbase.com/stevecagan www.stevecagan.blogspot.com http://socialdocumentary.net/photographer/stevecagan 216-932-2753 (USA) 322-344-7909 (Colombia) ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: listserv.miamioh.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]