Documenting a notable bird sighting is a part of everyday life for most birders, especially with the growing popularity of eBird. Detailed, high quality documentation is the best way to share an exciting birding experience with others. In eBird, documentation may even be required if you report a particularly rare species or unusually high count. It can be difficult to know exactly what to write in the comments box, or what to give when you’re asked about a bird sighting. Here we discuss common elements of bird descriptions in eBird, and which of these are more or less valuable as documentation. The focus here is eBird documentation, but much of this also applies to writing bird descriptions for other purposes, such as North American Birds or submitting a report to a bird records committee.
Read the full article in the eBird Help Center: How to document your sightings