We are thrilled to announce that we have finished the quality control steps for the Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas II dataset!
This was a massive undertaking, as over 3,500 atlasers generated over 2.8 million records in the atlas portal, among the approximately 8 million records in eBird in Wisconsin during this period.
Most vetting we did at this stage was at the breeding code level rather than vetting the occurrence of a species, because our detailed regional filters and strong network of local eBird reviewers had already caught many of the species-level errors.
The main steps in the process were:
1. Moved checklists with breeding codes or high-quality species into atlas eBird from general eBird.
2. Performed a coarse screen for protocol errors (e.g., overly long traveling counts, general hotspots that can cause block line issues).
3. Used the Breeding Guideline Bar Chart and Acceptable Breeding Codes Chart to automatically flag a batch of records, and manually evaluated that batch.
4. Examined interactive boxplots to check on the details of outlying codes for each species.
5. Examined the eBird maps to check on spatial outliers.
6. Examined the data for each block, especially scrutinizing species only occurring 1 or 2 times in a block to check their status.
Throughout all these processes, when atlasers used best practices such as leaving good comments for unusual situations, adding photos, and plotting eBird checklists at precise locations, it really made the vetting process easier. Many of the records that at first glance looked unlikely turned out to be supported based on your detailed notes. We can’t thank each of you individually but know that we did notice and read your comments, and really appreciate your efforts.
We owe a huge thanks to Tom Prestby, who led the initial screening of flagged records, and to Nick Anich, Ryan Brady, Aaron Stutz, Jack Coulter, and Rich Staffen, who comprised our primary team of reviewers. Thanks also to our County Coordinators and Principal Atlasers who provided input on their local regions, and of course to YOU for all the atlasing.
We will now be moving on to prepare the results and analysis for final products, including the book!
At the moment, the clean atlas data are viewable in the species maps on the atlas portal, or downloadable (clean after 4/15) as part of the EBD (eBird Basic Dataset).