Hi Everyone,

There have recently been some good questions about eBird observation types. In particular, people have wondered about the proper use of "Incidental" reports. To feel comfortable answering, I had to nag Marshall Iliff with about 12 e-mails before I felt like I fully understood. As most of you know, the vast majority of eBird reports are filed as either Stationary, Traveling, or Incidental. The former two are based on whether you were moving or not, and these require effort information (i.e., time and/or distance). Incidental reports are filed when birding was not your primary activity or when sightings were casually gathered en route. For example, you see a Bald Eagle while you are walking out of the post office or you decide to report a single Red-shouldered Hawk (uncommon locally) on Key Wallace Drive. Pretty straightforward.

You enter your species counts and your detailed notes. Before you click submit, you are asked, "Are you submitting a complete checklist of the birds you were able to identify?" (Yes/No)  Again, this seems pretty clear for Stationary and Traveling counts. As emphasized in previous posts, don't worry that you might have missed a chip note or a flyby waxwing. As long as you made an effort to tally everything present, it's correct to say "Yes".

Why is this question important? When you say "Yes", your report is much more likely to be used in analyses that determine presence AND ABSENCE of species. What species are increasing, declining, arriving slightly earlier, or staying slightly later? These seemingly minor changes in timing and relative abundance--especially among the common species--are perhaps the most important data we collect.

So the same goes for Incidental reports then?

If I drive down Egypt Road and see three American Kestrels, and I take the time to note the 65 Canada Geese and 7 American Crows, do I check "Yes" for reporting all species? Until now, this has generally been a gray zone even among serious eBird users. We would now like to encourage you to use "No" (i.e., you are NOT submitting a complete checklist) if your sightings are reported as Incidental. Are you saying there were no Tufted Titmice or Northern Cardinals if you stopped at the wooded edge for 30 seconds? If you report "Yes", you could be misrepresenting the common species and skewing the data. When sightings are truly incidental, please make your default answer "No", that you are not reporting all species.

This is when I thought I had Marshall trapped. "Aha! But then why don't you disable the 'Yes' option on Incidental reports? Check and mate..." Unfortunately not. The Incidental/Yes has a very valid use!  In many cases, rich historical data sets include full lists, but no effort information. You have a notebook with painstaking detail for 96 species on May day, but you don't have effort information (time/distance traveled). Without effort information, it has to be "Incidental", but the lists are as complete as they get for 1947 and we want to use it for presence/absence analyses.

So, please answer "No" to "Are you submitting a complete checklist?" when using the Incidental observation type. Better yet, stop for 3-5 minutes, submit a Stationary report, and answer "Yes"!

Thanks to everyone for the awesome support of eBird!

Good birding,

Bill

p.s. Here's our report from Pickering Creek today:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S10081215

Bill Hubick
Pasadena, Maryland

http://www.billhubick.com

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