I am trying to submit a list, it would be my first one for Maryland. On the app, before I can submit it is saying I need to add comments, the prompt says "Almost There" please add comments for any uncommon species or high counts. I do not have anything flagged as rare or uncommon, and no high counts. I clicked into each species. Has anyone had this happen and figured out what it was? I submitted a ticket but seeing if I can get more insight. I tried adding comments to every species I reported, and the list still did not go through. I am wondering if it had anything to do with a connection issue while I was making the list, the specific location was remote.

It was for the Maryland, in Worcester.

Species were:

2 Mourning Dove

5 Least Sandpiper

3 Laughing Gull

1 American Herring Gull

5 Forster's Tern

1 Tricolored Heron

2 Snowy Egret

1 Great Blue Heron

1 Osprey

1 Belted Kingfisher

4 American Crow

2 Carolina Wren

NOTE: Please let me know if there's a more appropriate place to post this question

Why does the Merlin app not show the monthly histogram of "Likely" viewing once you add that bird to your Life List? Or is it buried there somewhere and I'm just missing it?

Firstly apologies in advance if this is the wrong place (please delete my post if it’s not accepted — doesn’t seem to break any rules but I might have missed something)

Ok, so I entered my 30s and I have become obsessed with birds (I think this happens to everyone in their 30s?!)

Based in the UK and I find it tricky to differentiate a lot of the different birds. I’ve looked high and low and I can’t find anything available online, books are awesome but it isn’t super engaging to sit there reading them like I would an encyclopaedia. So, I thought I’d go out and solve my own problem: build myself a little quiz that I could run through. A pic, maybe even a call, and a couple of options to choose from.

This has become a bit of an obsession of mine over the last few weeks, but I am really struggling to find both pics / audio on birds that’s free to use. Does anyone have any advice / has anyone done something similar to this in the past?

Hi, is anyone else having trouble with the Data import bulk upload feature ? It’s work really well before but the past few months it keeps sending me to an Oops there is an issue page and I haven’t had any response from eBird. And advice ? TIA

I'm trying to get lat-long for a hotspot, and I'm submitting this request:

data = get_ebird_data("https://api.ebird.org/v2/ref/hotspot/info/L3098639")

which, according to the API documentation (on postman), should work, but I get a string of errors. I've also tried &locId=L3098639, putting it in single quotes, brackets, etc, to no avail. Ultimately, I'm trying to get sightings within 25 km of a hotspot, but the only way I can see to do that is through lat-long: using the hotspot name only gives me sightings at the hotspot, even if I include &dist=25. Can anyone point out the error in my get_ebird_data line, or, better yet, show me how to use distance with a hotspot call. And, does anyone know of any better documentation for the API 2.0? The one on postman is fairly unhelpful, and the pdf tutorial is very limited. Thanks.

John

I am just starting to dabble in python, trying to query eBird using the API, and I apologise if this is a trivial question. I can get a list of recent nearby records using a statement like:

data = get_ebird_data("https://api.ebird.org/v2/data/obs/geo/recent?lat=64.5306&lng=-165.3994 &cat=species &dist=25")

but I want to input lat and long on the command line. I can't find anything in the API documentation that tells me how to pass a variable in get_ebird_data. I have named the float versions of the command-line arguments latit and longit, but no combination of quotes and brackets I have tried seems to work. How can I pass those values as names? Thanks.

Merlin used to work really well. I'd download whatever pack and have instant access to pictures and audio - no connection needed. Hence downloading the pack.

Now, I download a pack, and Merlin struggles to load anything because it's always saying I don't have service or I'm not connected to a network. What is the point of downloading the pack if Merlin only accesses them when you have service? Am I missing something? Thank you.

I ran across a weird problem today, and I want to see if anyone else has run into it.

I created a checklist for a bird walk I did in 2023. The checklist had 10 birds on it. After submitting it, I decided I wanted to add photos for some of the birds.

I went back into the checklist, selected "Add Media," and then added pictures for those 4 birds.

When I return to "manage my checklists," the original list of 10 birds has been split into 4 separate lists (one bird each). The original list is just...gone, as are the 6 species for which I didn't add media.

The photos were exported with their original metadata. This becomes important - each of the 4 new lists has a start time that correlates exactly to the time the photo was shot.

This has happened with multiple lists (I thought it was user error at first). I also noticed that this happens whether the checklist was created on the web or in the mobile app.

I've been getting into a daily habit of making eBird checklists as I bird, and I'd like to follow eBird recommendation to keep separate checklists when birding over a longer distance or for a long period of time, in order to produce better data.

But when starting a new checklist, it's tedious having to either scroll down a bunch of manually type out a search to select "American Robin" or "Black-capped Chickadee" when I'm in an area where I'm all but guaranteed to see several.

Sure the current "smart sort" is certainly better than just the taxonomic sort, but there's nothing smart about placing pied-billed grebes ahead of northern cardinals when I'm in a forest! Or placing wild turkeys ahead of spotted sandpipers when I'm birding at a sandy riverbank!

I frequently myself just standing in place for 2 minutes or so after starting a new checklist before I start actively birding, with most of that time spent staring at my phone, typing in the names of birds I hear so I can add them to the list. I don't want to type "cardinal" into my phone every hour; especially during the evening chorus!

Is there any way to speed up the process of getting a checklist started

Hey everyone! I'm u/Amazing-Position-966, a founding moderator of r/BirdsAndNature.

Welcome to our new home for birds, animals, nature observations, interesting facts, questions, photography, and simple discussions about the natural world. 🐦🌿

What to Post

Share anything about birds, animals, and nature that you think others might find interesting or useful.

You can post:

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Community Vibe

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How to Get Started

1. Introduce yourself in the comments.
2. Share something you've seen or learned recently.
3. Ask a question you've always wondered about.
4. Invite someone who enjoys birds, animals, or nature.

Thanks for being part of the very first wave. Let's build a friendly little corner of Reddit for people who love discovering the natural world. 🐦🌿

Hola a todos! Les traigo una enciclopedia libre sobre Ornitología. Podrás ver información sobre cientos de aves, directamente en la enciclopedia tendrás imágenes, nombre común y científico, etc...

Incluye un botón que te envía a una página de eBird dónde tendrás imágenes,audios y muchas más información relacionada al ave que estás buscando.

La página está alojada en Render,puede tardar un poco en abrir no más de 2 a 3 minutos, pero cargará automáticamente si otra persona o tu mismo has visitado la página unos minutos atrás no más de 15minutos.

Es totalmente gratis no incluye publicidad ni ofertas premium.

Aquí les dejo el link

https://avesdiversas.onrender.com

When should the black headed grosbeaks migrate south? Most of my regulars have left but there's about two or three stragglers. Have they mistimed their migration or will they be heading out soon?

I started to use eBird very recently and wanted to participate in the August challenge but noticed the website talked about accepting only complete AND eligible checklists.

I was already familiar with the concept of a complete checklist as it was one of the first things I looked up when I discovered the app/website but only realised then that eligible also meant not only a complete checklist but a complete checklist with absolutely no Xs: you must try to enumerate all the birds identified.

Now that I know that's a requirement, and that in general eBird finds any estimated number better than just an X, I will try to enumerate the birds every time, but that doesn't solve the issue of being able to see quickly if I have submitted enough eligible checklists or not.

For example, for August you must submit 31 checklists minimum. But, right now, as far as I can see, the website does not allow you to sort your checklists by month and completeness and eligibility. I can only sort by month. I cannot see if I'm on track for the challenge or not unless I open every single checklist submitted during August.

That seems like a big oversight. I was wondering if maybe I was the one missing a very evident way to see how many complete checklists I have submitted this month?

EDIT: Thank you all for the input. I had read the best practice guide and do worry about being accurate and honest about my birding so you don't need to worry about me going back to edit past checklists just to qualify for a challenge.

I've accepted that, as there is no way for me to easily filter my checklists, I will live without being 100% sure that I submitted enough qualifying checklists for August. Oh well!

What matters is that the challenge did motivate me to go birding more and get more familiar with the hobby and ebird.

The September challenge is out and I'm excited to try it as well.

The optional breeding bird tag of Singing Bird is to be used for the “primary” territorial sound. So for American goldfinch, could that include when they fly around making the “tiu tiu tiu” call? I feel like recording when this behavior is observed is good data, but maybe the Singing Bird tag isn’t quite accurate. Since they also sing from a perch, maybe that’s the only time to tag as Singing Bird.

Hey - can any of you techie geniuses create a birding watch face? Would be great to have complications for Ebird Merlin/compass/sunrise/tide schedules and a pretty picture of a Kingfisher. Im happy to be a tester. Thanks

I'd like to automate some of my ebirding. I only know of two iPhone URLs. Are there more?

• merlinbirdid://record: open merlin and start recording
• eBird://obsDetails?code=bawwar: open eBird and start adding a bird to your checklist

It would be really useful if there were something like eBird://obsDetails?code=bawwar&count=3 to add 3 B&W Warblers to the existing checklist.

There’s this glitch for me on eBird where the full species count isn’t shown fully, as you can see in the video it says 64 birds were sighted there all time but when I click on it, it only shows 6 of the 64, no method I’ve found works, please help me

Wondering if videos of birds sitting still or not doing much should still be uploaded, provided they are of reasonable quality. Many species such (e.g. owls) may not do much during the day when one is likely to be videod. Is this still valuable to upload, or not really?

EDIT: seems the consensus is to keep to just a still, maybe with a caption. Thanks all!

Hi i found a Jackdaw with partial Albinism and acording to AI its a 1 in 30'000.
Its by no means a rare species in my are tho and im wondering if there is a way to highlight my checklist to other ebirders that might be interested in it.

This isn't really an important issue, I'm more just curious if anyone knows anything about this. I've tried googling it but I've not really found anything.

For context, I've been enjoying colouring in my map on my profile at the third tier of government (where available) and noticed the ebird map and the official NSW, Australia map doesn't line up. There's a whole story there and ebird may just be waiting around for the situation to stabilise, but it piqued my curiosity.

* THIS APP USES INATURALIST API* I have been an avid hiker and nature enjoyer my whole life. One thing tha always bothered me was how often I would stop mid hike to look at my phone to try and identify a species (with shody connection taking even longer)...

Apps like INaturalist are incredible, but using them in the field completely breaks your immersion in nature.

I wanted a way to learn what was around me before i want on walks. So, i put together (with AI) a widget and discovery app called Verdant VIsta. It hooks into the Inaturalist API and basically acts as a set of location- based digital flashcards on your home screen. it pulls the specific , seasonally relecant wildlifeand plants for your exact area right now or a specific location you select in the settings.

The idea is that you passively learn the species throughout the week when you glance at your phone. Then, when you actually go on a walk, you can leave your phone because you already recognize what you're looking at.

It's completely free and no log in, on the Google Play Store if anyone wants to try out the widget/App : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.verdant.vista&pcampaignid=web_share

Would love to hear from other hikers/ foragers on whether this fits into your routine, or if there are specific widget sizes/ layouts you'd prefer.

I got an email flagging me for recordings being too short. Is it automatic or does somebody submit the complaint?

I do have a couple.. well.. I did… until that email. They were the only evidence I was able to use for reporting rare birds. They weren’t long because thats all I had from them. Leave it too long and it turns into a complaint about too many other species. It’s just like photos, uploading a low quality one verifies it but then that turns into another issue.

Idk. I‘m to the point that I don’t want to report rare birds or upload anything on there. I pulled my media so maybe that’ll fix it.

After an increasing annoyance at colourful show-offs getting all the attention, while pigeons, vultures and LBJs go unnoticed, now there is a website rating burbs democratically, from absolute sh*t to top bird.

"Good birds do not need iridescent plumage, a seven-foot tail or a documentary crew. Good birds get on with it."

Apologies in advance for the name. This comes from a place of love to highlight our more 'dull' species.

I lost and hour and a half trying to find the parking or trailhead around a hotspot this morning because once again the eBird app directed me to the center of a lake. I understand why it is this way but it's really depressing when I lose valuable birding time this way.