[Tweeters] Question about confirmed/unconfirmed rare bird reports on EBird

[Emily Birchman via Tweeters]

Hi all,

I am relatively newer to using EBird, having only started using it in 2023.
While I've gotten used to a lot of the features, I'm not an expert, so I
was wondering if someone could shed some light on this for me.

I'm wondering why some reports of rare birds that contain photos or
recordings become 'confirmed' and others do not? Occasionally I can see why
because the report doesn't clearly indicate the species being reported
versus something else that's more common. But I reported two sightings in
the last week that have remained unconfirmed despite adding recordings or
photos and I'm curious why they're still unconfirmed.

This past weekend, on 5/25, I hiked at Big 4 Ice Caves with my family and
did some birding. I was using Merlin, and it very clearly caught an
American Redstart singing. After patiently looking for awhile, I finally
ended up spotting it - too far to take a photo but it was very clearly a
redstart - black and orange warbler, white underside, I could see it
singing while Merlin ID'd the song. I got my lifer redstart here in the
same area last June with very clear but brief views, and this time I got to
watch the bird actively flit around a tree for much longer. It was
delightful! (side note: I think there was briefly a female present, as
well, but I didn't have my guide or a cell phone signal to look it up so I
wasn't sure of the ID and didn't report her).
I reported the singing male with a description and later added 2 recordings
from Merlin, which I didn't know how to edit but the second recording only
has the redstart and a Hammond's Flycatcher calling so it seemed fairly
clear.

The report showed up on the Snohomish County rare bird alert as
unconfirmed, and it has continued to be unconfirmed even though other
birders went the next day and 2 of their reports were confirmed with only a
description (not a recording) of the song, as they didn't see it.
There are other subsequent reports after the 2 confirmed ones that have
recordings and those are also unconfirmed.

More recently, I went to Juanita Bay Park this week with a friend and we
saw a horned grebe. We got photos using my binoculars to zoom in since
neither of us have a camera other than that on our cell phones. I posted my
sighting with those photos which are admittedly not great, but I think are
clear enough to see that it's a horned grebe, not another species, but that
one has also remained unconfirmed.

I'm wondering if it just takes a long time for sightings to be confirmed,
or if there's something I should have done differently to describe what I
saw to make it more likely to be confirmed? I don't often get to see 'rare'
birds but am happy to learn more about how to report sightings more
helpfully.

Thanks for any advice you have! :)
Emily Birchman
Kenmore WA
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