<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto">Hi Louise and Jim -<div>Since I am not privy to the complete conversation with Cornell, my feeling is that it might be best to question them again for clarification on the specifics mentioned here regarding counting every observation even if very likely it’s a repeat. Obviously we all are trying to gather a true picture with our counting.</div><div>I have seen a Bewick’s Wren occasionally near my feeders every day for several weeks now. I’ve never seen two simultaneously during this time. If I stood at my kitchen window for a long periods, I’m sure I would see it on multiple occasions in the course of a day. It would certainly be misleading and bad science to count it on every occasion. </div><div>I believe it is important to paint a true picture of numbers of birds especially when submitting to eBird. I rely on the information in eBird when birding excursions take me to unfamiliar places. I hope we’re all on the same page in this regard.</div><div><br></div><div>Greg Pluth </div><div>University Place</div><div><br></div><div><br id="lineBreakAtBeginningOfSignature"><div dir="ltr">Sent from my iPhone</div><div dir="ltr"><br><blockquote type="cite">On Jan 27, 2025, at 9:01 PM, Louise via Tweeters <tweeters@u.washington.edu> wrote:<br><br></blockquote></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div>Many thanks for all these details, Jim.</div><div><br></div><div>My criteria for keeping my own personal yard list are definitely my own. I want to know which birds are using the habitat I provide, not every bird that might pass through the general area. <br></div><div><br></div><div>When I'm listing for ebird or whatever, I do make note of every bird I see/hear, however distant. It's interesting, though, that Cornell encourage us to count every bird, even when it's highly likely to be a repeat. My tendency in those circumstances has been to count the minimum number of birds rather than the maximum, because I have indeed been worried about over-counting. Certainly on the CBCs I've been on, I've been encouraged to count that way to avoid over-counting. <br></div><div><br></div><div>Does anyone know of there are specific criteria for CBCs that differ from those of Cornell?</div><div><br></div><div>Louise Rutter</div><div>Kirkland<br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Jan 26, 2025 at 12:24 PM via Tweeters <<a href="mailto:tweeters@u.washington.edu">tweeters@u.washington.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
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<p>Louise,<br>
<br>
Back when I was first starting to use eBird I asked this specific question<br>
about my checklists. Specifically - "when do you report (count) a bird?"<br>
and gave the example of my backyard feeder and the fact that I could<br>
see birds coming and going ... but suspected - highly - that some/many<br>
of them were 'repeats' and had been there as short a time ago as only a<br>
few minutes.<br>
<br>
The answer I got was "if you don't know for certain it is the same bird -<br>
count it". So even if you have a group of say 10 finches that are coming<br>
and going from your yard/feeder - the advice is to count them "every time<br>
you see them that you, personally, can't say it is the same bird".<br>
This advice is not just about birds in our backyards. And Cornell<br>
doesn't consider it "over counting" (probably because you will also<br>
miss many birds that might visit your backyard when you do something<br>
as seemingly insignificant as just getting another cup of coffee).<br>
There are similar considerations for 2 or more people all seeing and<br>
reporting the -same- bird ... perhaps even birding together.<br>
<br>
So here is my take/interpretation of this advice. As long as everyone is<br>
using pretty much the same methods - it doesn't matter ... because <br>
what the science is about is the changes - over time and even over<br>
relatively long periods of time. Such as from one season to the next or<br>
one year to the next or one decade to the next.<br>
We all know about events such as "irruptions" and "long term trends"<br>
etc. <br>
<br>
===> If we have lots of data (reports) then it all averages out in ways<br>
that wouldn't be true for just a few reports (total number of<br>
checklist). <br>
<br>
But there -are- lots of checklists being done in all kinds of situations.<br>
So report what you can ID and let the citizen science work out what it<br>
means. Even reports such as "Gull, species" are valuable/useful -<br>
especially when compared to no reports at all?<br>
- Jim in Skagit</p>
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