Introducing the "BirdsEye Challenge" and news of a BirdsEye update
The BirdsEye Challenge
The week of 23-31 January 2010 will be the BirdsEye Challenge Week (actually 9 days). The goal is to submit the highest number of effort-based complete checklists (e.g., Traveling, Stationary counts etc.) from the United States and Canada during that 9-day period, and the top 20 submitters will receive a free BirdsEye iPhone App (iPhone not included!!!). The developers of the BirdsEye application have generously offered free versions of the new BirdsEye iPhone app as an award to 20 champion eBirders during this time frame.
Grand prize: The three people submitting the most checklists will each receive a free subscription to the Birds of North America Online.
BirdsEye Prize: The top 20 checklist submitters will be awarded a free version of the latest BirdsEye version.
BirdsEye works on iPhone and iPod Touch, so anyone having either of those devices is eligible for the BirdsEye prize, but you still have to let us know. We'll need you to register so that we know you have an iPhone/iTouch. If you already have BirdsEye, there won't be much point to registering. To register, fill out the registration form. You do not need to register to be eligible for the Grand Prize, only if you want to be considered for the BirdsEye prize.
And if you don't have an iPhone or iTouch, never fear, you are still eligible for the Birds of North America prize for first, second, and third place.
To participate, just go eBirding--a lot--and submit your checklists. We'll let you know if you win, but even if you don't win the prizes, you'll certainly be helping eBird (and your list totals) a lot!
In summary, the rules are:
1) Competition is for the total number of effort-based complete checklists from the United States and Canada submitted from 23-31 Jan 2010.
2) Number of species per checklist does not matter, so the eBirders living in the south don't have any real advantage (other than nicer weather, perhaps).
3) A complete checklist is defined as a checklist submitted that answers 'yes' to the question "are you reporting all species to the best of your ability"?.
4) An effort-based checklist is one using any of our four effort-based protocols: Traveling Count, Stationary Count, Random count, or Area Count.
5) Grand Prizes will go to the three people with the highest number of checklists submitted.
6) The BirdsEye prize will be awarded to the 20 registered individuals with the most checklists submitted.
7) Registration deadline is 31 January 2010.
Lots of eBird checklists from distinct locations are really helpful to eBird, its visualizations, and its utility for science. The more checklists we get, the better!
BirdsEye improvements
BirdsEye version 1.0 was released in early December. On 9 January 2010 it was updated to version 1.1, with one major change that vastly improves its utility: it now displays data from personal locations too! Since many birds are discovered at publicly-accessible areas that are not eBird hotspots, this development is a big step forward and makes BirdsEye an essential tool for finding birds while in the field.
As you know, eBird has two types of locations: hotspots and personal locations. When you submit data on a map, the red balloons are the hotspots and the blue ones are the personal locations. Hotspots are generally publicly accessible, known locations that are good for birds. But the same is true of most personal locations too.
However, since personal locations may also be a backyard, BirdsEye has obscured these locations somewhat in the interest of privacy. When you access bird observations in BirdsEye, you can see all locations where birds have been reported recently, but the private locations are only plotted within the general vicinity (~0.5 mi) of the actual location, not the exact spot. In addition, the location names are numerical so that people's home addresses don't appear.
This results in much much more information available in BirdsEye and is still really helpful for getting observers to birds that they want to see. Even with obscured locations, BirdsEye is often steering you to habitat or general areas that are good bets for the bird. We just ask, as always, that you be mindful of private property when letting BirdsEye steer you to private locations. These may or may not be publicly accessible and we trust users to be respectful at all times.
About BirdsEye
BirdsEye is the first iPhone app to harness the eBird database as a source for birdfinding information. Within the application, you can select any of the following options:
1) Find nearby birds: This pulls up a list of all the birds reported to eBird in the general area (within about 30 miles) within the past 3 years. You can further filter this list to show only the recently-reported species (within the past 30 days). From either menu, you can click on the species to see the 20 locations with recent reports and how long ago they were reported. You can also click to see the complete list of birds for the location and can even get directions directly from the app.
2) Locate a bird: This allows a user to select any bird from a list of 847 possibilities in North America. Clicking on the bird name will give you the 20 nearest observations, which you can access both on a map (and get directions) or as a list, and of course you can get directions from your current location to the bird.
3) View birding hotspots: This option shows you the nearest hotspots to your current location, how far away they are, and how many species have been seen there. Clicking on the hotspot gives a full list of the birds observed there over the past 3 years and when the most recent report was. You can also filter this list to only show birds seen in the last 30 days. And of course, you can get directions from your current location to the hotspot.
4) Content: For any species, you have access to a selection of one or more photos from VIREO, songs and calls from The Library of Natural Sounds, and bird-finding tips from Kenn Kaufman written specifically for BirdsEye.
5) Life list: You can record your life list in BirdsEye as well. Currently this is not integrated with eBird, but we hope it will be in the future. This can be used to help you quickly discover nearby birds that have been reported that you have not seen.
6) Change your location: It is easy to change your location, so that you can check birds near Washington D.C. one minute and look for what is being seen near Los Angeles the next!
If you do try it, we urge you to write a review at the App Store.
Team eBird's review
Team eBird all has iPhones and are all BirdsEye users. We love it! It is a really simple, user-friendly way to access up to date eBird information from the field. With concern for privacy, the BirdsEye team has done a great job delivering the information that is most useful to birders, whether landing at an airport for a birding trip far from home or just keeping up on what reports are coming in locally.
It also allows really cool things like: 1) quickly see the complete list of birds for a hotspot; 2) quickly see which hotspots in an area have the most data and which have the least (we like to go birding at the ones that have the least!); 3) quickly find out where the closest Ivory Gull is (this is a fun quiz to have with your birding friends...where is the closest Great Gray Owl...Northern Hawk Owl...Curlew Sandpiper...etc. 4) photos and audio at your fingertips for hundreds of birds.
Overall, it is a great application that harnesses eBird data in new ways. We look forward to future developments, and obviously, the piece that we really really want is for it to be updated to allow data entry from the field. This will be one of the next elements to come down the pike at BirdsEye, so stay tuned.
In the name of full disclosure, we should say that Team eBird did consult with the BirdsEye team during development of the application. So we may have a bit of a bias here. Even still, we think it is great and urge you to give it a try; it revolutionizes the information available through a smart phone. It has already changed the way we go birding and how we get birding info from the field.
More information:
The application was developed by Birds in the Hand, LLC, of Virginia, and brings together content from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Academy of Natural Sciences, and Kenn Kaufman.
- BirdsEye: www.getbirdseye.com
- iTunes App Store:
