New eBird Features
Indigo Bunting
eBird Alerts
We are very excited to introduce a new feature: eBird
Alerts! By going to the eBird Alerts page from 'View and Explore
Data' you can view a list of all the national-level rarities recently
reported in North America and Canada. These are defined by the ABA
Codes, which we explain below. You have the option to subscribe hourly
(!), daily, or just to visit this page and click to see the results
from the past seven days. In the near future, we hope to add similar
alerts for birds you 'need' (i.e., birds not already on your eBird
list) for a given state or province. So please, sign up for our ABA
Alerts to keep up on what rarities--like Ivory Gulls--are being
reported around the country!
Updates to BirdsEye -- hotspots and rare birds
Back in early December we announced the exciting release of
BirdsEye, the first iPhone app to begin to harness the power of the
eBird database and steer you toward finding birds in the field.
BirdsEye has made some significant improvements since its initial
release, since a on recent revision (version 1.1) now provides
information on birds found at personal locations as well as hotspots!
Even better, you can now get information on nationally rare birds
nearby as well as locally notable birds. BirdsEye is available on the
App Store via iTunes.
eBird Launches Rare Bird Google Gadget
Imagine having all the reports of rare birds entered into eBird in
your home state delivered straight to your desktop! That's exactly what
the new eBird Rare Bird Gadget does! We've developed a Google Gadget to
deliver rare bird sightings straight to your desktop including
important details such as observer information and mapping information!
Any record submitted to eBird that requires the user to click the 'Rare
species' link on the checklist page will now appear on the rare bird
gadget. You'll know within minutes when someone reports a great bird in
your region. Find out more about how to use the eBird Rare Bird
gadget.
eBird and Social Networking
In addition to the main eBird page there are several ways to keep up
with what's new at eBird. We use a variety of social networking tools
to help keep you informed about new developments and get your feedback
on how we can improve. We encourage you to become fans of eBird on
Facebook, follow us on Twitter and see what's new at
Chip Notes – eBird Buzz. We also have a technical discussion group
called eBird Tech Talk. The goal with each of these outlets is to
provide you with ways to interact with us, and perhaps even more
importantly to interact with other eBirders.
eBird & Flickr -- Share Your Bird Photos
You will notice that the eBird home page now includes several "thumbnail" images of rare birds that have been submitted to eBird. A few months ago we created a group within the popular photo-sharing site, Flickr. We received many requests from users who wanted be able to upload images of birds that they have photographed. This is particularly true for rarities (birds seen outside their normal range, or at an odd time of year). Our intent with this group is to provide a venue for people to photographically document species seen outside their normal range, outside their normal seasonal occurrence, or unexpectedly large counts of birds. The most recent images now appear on the eBird home page.
eBird Enters the Blogosphere
A lot happens from day to day at eBird, and we want to share it with you. We've created a blog to enhance our ability to connect with our users, to address issues that arise from time to time, and to harness the power of the eBird community to better define the future direction of the project. Through the 'Chip Notes – eBird Buzz' blog we hope to create an on-going dialogue with our users. We want to get to know you better, learn what you like about eBird and what you think needs improvement. We want to know why you use eBird, and we want to engage those who don’t to tell us why! We want to let you speak your minds about how we’re doing in providing this service to the birding community. Through collaboration, we’ll keep eBird evolving in the direction that best suits the needs of the birding community, all while keeping our internal focus on collecting valuable scientific data. We look forward to hearing from you!
