Date: 3/12/26 10:56 am From: Nora Hanke <nhanke...> Subject: Re: [NHBirds] Location in eBird - please choose correct hotspot
Hi Bruce,
That advice makes sense to me. NH Audubon eBird policy that applies in the
Beaver Brook Association (BBA) situation is to try to locate hotspot pins
at the most likely parking area for a trail system. This amalgamates
checklists for excursions that may have started/finished at entirely
different access points that serve the same area. Maple Hill barn has a
large parking area from which people may walk down Cow Lane and eventually
over to Spatterdock Pond, or trails to the West of the pond. People wishing
to access the Whiting Trail, which has no real parking space, will probably
park at Maple Hill barn. A walk along Whiting Trail to and around
Spatterdock Pond and back "belongs to" the Maple Hill hotspot, rather than
to Beaver Brook Association--Brown Lane hotspot. Beaver Brook trails
connect to each other and it is a judgement call as to whether a walk/ski
in one area is more associated with Maple Hill or Brown Lane. If a
checklist included areas represented by more than one hotspot pin, ie you
were on trails served by Brown Lane parking AND by Maple Hill's parking,
the checklist location choices include: end one checklist and start another
when you cross an imaginary boundary (ideal); use a separate, personal
location with a descriptive name (less helpful because it does not
amalgamate your observations with others'). eBird central guidance on
choosing location when there is more than one hotspot in an area is here
<https://support.ebird.org/en/support/solutions/articles/48001009443-ebird-hotspot-faqs#anchorChoosingAHotspot> .
-Nora
On Thu, Mar 12, 2026 at 1:23 PM Bruce Conti <contiba...> wrote:
> Interesting because a few months ago one of the people at eBird instructed
> the opposite. I had been hiking around Spatterdock Pond in the Beaver
> Brook Reservation in Hollis, starting and finishing at the Whiting Trail,
> and placed my location at Spatterdock Pond. I received an email from eBird
> instructing me to relocate to the nearby Maple Hill hotspot even though I
> hadn't been hiking through that spot, indicating that they preferred using
> a hotspot for data rather than a custom location outside the hotspot. So I
> changed the location in my checklist. I wish I still had the email.
>
> On Thu, Mar 12, 2026 at 3:54 PM <nha......> <nhanke...>
> wrote:
>
>> This is a reminder that location for an eBird checklist is meant to
>> represent *where the birder was located throughout the time of that
>> checklist*, not where they were looking towards. If you are standing
>> outside a hotspot or in hotspot B rather than hotspot A, then do not assign
>> the list to hotspot A.
>> When multiple hotspots are close together, for example in Hinsdale
>> (Hinsdale Setbacks, Hinsdale Bluffs, Fort Hill Rail Trail, Lake
>> Wantastiquet), if you bird across more than one location, then either stop
>> one list at the boundary and then start another, or use a personal location
>> with a descriptive name. If you were on the bluffs and not actually in Lake
>> Wantastiquet, do not use the pin of Lake Wantastiquet. Otherwise, data will
>> be wrong, implying open water habitat when multiple waterfowl are reported
>> when in fact the water is fully frozen-over. Also, birders will be misled
>> as to where birds are located, wasting their time and energy in the wrong
>> location.
>>
>>
> --
> Bruce Conti
> *B.A.Conti Photography* www.baconti.com/birding.htm
> *¡BAMLog!* www.bamlog.com
>
--
Nora E. Hanke
MB,ChB, MS
email <nhanke...>
tel. 603-484-1294
