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New Feature: eBird Top 100!

April 1, 2009
New Feature: eBird Top 100!

Green Violetear, Savegre, Costa Rica, November. Photo by Brian Sullivan.

We're proud to introduce a new feature at eBird called the "eBird Top 100." Using this new tool found under the "View and Explore Data" tab, you can now see your position in relation to other eBird users in a variety of geographic regions including ABA area, country, state and county. We offer two different rankings: the total number of species reported, or the total number of complete checklists submitted. Our users have asked for a tool like this so that they can see where they stand in relation to other birders in their region of interest. We hope this new tool will inspire healthy competition among eBirders, and increase the amount of checklists submitted by inspiring birders to get out and collect more new data, as well as promote the entry of historic records. Click on "View and Explore Data" to find out how you rank among the best eBirders in the country!

Maybe you are a birder who focuses on a particular county, or maybe you spend most of your time birding within a certain state. Have you ever wondered where your list totals stand in relation to other eBirders in your region? The new eBird Top 100 tool will let you know! When you select a geographic region, the Top 100 tool will immediately display your rank at the top of that region in highlighted yellow, and below that will list the Top 100 people in the region, along with their most recent species addition.

In addition to the display of the Top 100 birders who have submitted the most species, we offer another metric that is of great importance: the number of complete checklists submitted. We feel strongly that birders should be encouraged to submit complete checklists when possible, which in turn provides better data for science. So if you are trying to enter old data to get your lists up to where they should be, please do try to enter complete checklists whenever possible (if you just don't have that information though, don't feel guilty!) We actually use # of complete checklists as a tiebreaker for species totals. If two eBirders are tied for species totals, but one has more complete checklists, it gives you a higher position in the Top 100.

One important note about the totals displayed at the top from which the percentages are calculated: these represent the total number reported to eBird (and validated by our reviewers), but not necessarily the "official" list according to the local records committee. This may provide a good guide to highlight which states and countries we need more data from. If our list is far lower than the "official" total, then please help us to get more data in so the totals more closely match up! You could even help to enter historical data to get the totals perfectly in synch; contact us at ebird@cornell.edu for advice on how to enter historical data.

If you aren't happy with where you stand on the Top 100 in your region you can do two things: get out there and find more birds, or grab those old notebooks off your shelves and start entering your old data into eBird! 

We hope you enjoy this new tool!

 Team eBird