Date: 3/15/26 9:17 am From: <nha......> <nhanke...> Subject: Re: [NHBirds] Location in eBird - please choose correct hotspot
eBird exists to serve generate data but is designed to appeal to users, and
there can be a tension between these two aspects. The integrity of data
collection matters for the science values, and being considerate of other
eBirders factors into accuracy of location, species ID etc.
Personal locations and hotspots are points on the map, which
represent areas rather than that point alone (except that a personal
location for a stationary checklist might be where you really stood). Some
points represent a well-defined area - conservation parcels, esp. if it has
only 1 hotspot - but many have fuzzy outlines - contiguous hotspots within
a named conservation parcel or a general area without a focal birding
feature - which are defined in subjective ways. Some areas that have
multiple hotspots also have a general hotspot that could represent birding
across the real or imaginary boundaries - for example, the hotspot Great
Bay - which in the latter instance could also represent aquatic-based
birding (or not!). You could use the checklists's Comments section to
specify.
Water bodies are common bird magnets. Eel Pond and other water body-based
hotspots may have their pins (location markers) in the middle of the
waterway, especially when the water can be viewed from multiple locations
and/or parking and pedestrian access may occur from different locations. In
these cases, the marker does not represent that the eBirder has to be in
the water. But, sometimes the context of a hotspot indicates the hotspot
does represent the eBirder being in the water. These include pins off the
NH coast, and Lake Wantastiquet at Hinsdale. Hinsdale has multiple adjacent
hotspots, with 3 representing being on land (Setbacks, Fort Hill Rail
Trail, Bluffs), and the separate one called Lake Wantastiquet, with the
latter located in the middle of the river. Lake Wantastiquet is visible
from all three land hotspots, so its existence implies it represents
aquatic-based birding, and presumably mostly waterfowl right there, as
opposed to the predominance of land birds on a checklist generated from the
other Hinsdale hotspots.
On Friday, March 13, 2026 at 9:38:25 AM UTC-4 <gregt......> wrote:
> 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
>>
>
