eBird Launches Rare Bird Google Gadget

What the heck is it?

The eBird Rare Bird Gadget is a feed that brings rare bird records from our database to your desktop within minutes. Now eBird users can get up to the minute alerts on rare birds reported to eBird! Any record submitted to eBird that requires the user to click the "Rare species" link on the checklist page during the data entry process will now appear on the rare bird gadget.

How does it work?

Rare Birds--First and foremost, the rare bird gadget delivers information about rare birds seen in your state over the past seven days directly to your desktop. Information included in the detailed text are date, location, and observer, as well as the ability to click a map link and see the bird's location on Google Maps. We even color code the record based on whether it's been reviewed an accepted as valid by an eBird reviewer (heads up reviewers!). Yellow = Not yet reviewed; Green = Reviewed and accepted.

State Selection--You can choose any state that you wish, but so far this is limited to the United States. Don't worry Canadians; we're working on a version that will include Canada shortly!

Show/Hide Details--You can look at the details of all observations by clicking the "show details" option in the header bar, or for individual records by clicking the (+) sign to open each record independently.

How do I get it?

The eBird Rare Bird Gadget feeds eBird data to your desktop via iGoogle. What is iGoogle you ask? It's simply a home page where you can display various gadgets from all types of web sites, and create something that is ultimately tailored to your tastes and interests. You do not need to be a Google member to view the eBird gadget, but if you do create a free user name and password, Google will retain your settings and remember how you liked to view your gadget.

The easiest way to load the eBird Rare Bird Gadget is to click the following link:

Get the eBird Rare Bird Gadget

This should have opened up a new window in your browser with iGoogle, and automatically imported the Rare Bird Gadget. Now all you have to do is click "Add to Google" and you're all set!

Once you're looking at the gadget you can change the state to your region of interest. Remember, if no birds are listed, it's because no one has reported anything rare!

Note! This gadget is not yet compatible with Mac's Safari web browser! It works well with Firefox web browser on Macs.

How do I participate?

As a registered eBird user your records will automatically appear in the eBird Google Gadget. When you submit a checklist including a rare bird, the record will show up on the gadget within minutes, and we'll use your user profile to automatically associate your name with your records. If you observe a bird that you consider to be a sensitive species, or at a sensitive location that you would not like to share, you can delay data entry of this record for one week, as the gadget only shows records from the past seven days. This will allow the record to remain outside the scope of the gadget, but still fall within the primary eBird database. We hope to make this a user preference in a future iteration of the gadget.

We consider this a "beta" release of the gadget, and we look forward to hearing your feedback on it. We'll be making improvements over the next month or so as new feedback comes in. We hope you enjoy this new way to look at eBird data, and we hope this inspires you to go out and find a few rare birds yourselves!

Bird on!

Team eBird