Date: 3/13/26 6:38 am From: '<gregt......>' via NHBirds <nhbirds...> Subject: Re: [NHBirds] Location in eBird - please choose correct hotspot
The difference of a few hundred yards between where you are and where the
bird is seems pretty insignificant from a data collection point of view. In
addition, many hotspots are clearly designed to report where the bird is
and not the birder, as for example Eel Pond vs. Jenness Beach. If hotspots
were designed with “boundaries” in mind, this would be just one hotspot
centered on 1A. The confusion is exacerbated by the opposite recent trend
of marking hotspots at a parking lot entrance, which is great for people
trying to find a location, less great for recording habitat and birding
site.
And clustered hotspots further increase confusion. Recording sightings in
separate hotspots is a great idea — where it makes sense. If there are a
bunch of hotspots a hundred yards apart then separate checklists for each
spot is less tenable, and I’m not going to start a new checklist every two
minutes. Where there are no hotspots, in the Whites for ex, ebird’s
guidance is to start a new checklist every 5 miles or so; by comparison,
hotspots are striving for kind of excessive accuracy.
Ebird would rather have the data collected than to not have people use
ebird at all because it is too cumbersome.
On Thursday, March 12, 2026 at 1:37:25 PM UTC-4 Bruce Conti 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......> <nha......>
> 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
>
