[cobirds] Re: South Platte Rez county line and eBird

Hey all,

This is another great example where eBird reporting guidelines and ABA report guidelines don't perfectly mesh. Strictly speaking, according to ABA guidelines Scott's original post is correct. Standing in the SW corner of South Platte Res. and viewing the YBLO which is in the Arapahoe Co. portion of the res does not count as a Jefferson Co. bird. Anyone who keeps strict ABA county lists would need to walk to the Arapahoe Co. side of the reservoir or wait for the bird to move into the JeffCo side of the reservoir.

EBird isn't necessarily focused on checklists as they pertain to geopolitical borders and the ABA guidelines as they pertain to said borders. The scientific data set that is eBird is intended to be analyzed with distance travelled, duration of observation, and number of observers in mind (assuming you report all observed birds (I.e. a complete checklist)). In this sense, eBird absolutely wants to know that you saw a YBLO from the SW corner of the reservoir, even if it's in the Arapahoe Co. portion of the reservoir. By indicating a complete checklist you are affirming that you saw all birds that you reported and reported all birds that you saw from a given location and given distance travelled. This then becomes a valuable piece of information within the eBird data set. As Andrew noted, if you view the bird from the "wrong" side of the county line and want to preserve the integrity of your ABA county list on eBird, omit the YBLO but mark your checklist as incomplete.

Perhaps this is needlessly complicated but it's one of many examples where ABA birding and citizen science birding butt heads. At the end of the day, we're all lucky to see a darn good bird at a relatively close distance, which is all I could want.

Good birding,
Aaron Yappert
Boulder/Telluride

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