MDOsprey'ers,
The MD eBird Team and volunteers would like to encourage eBirders to use
Hotspots in place of a personal location, when Hotspots exist.
What are Hotspots?
Hotspots are public birding locations created by eBird users. Using
Hotspots, multiple birders can enter data into the same shared location,
creating aggregated results available through "View and Explore Data".
* *
Did you know you can rename a Hotspot?
Maybe you want to use a Hotspot but you don’t like its name. No problem,
you can rename the Hotspot. Let’s say you are birding on Russell Rd in
Garrett County. The Hotspot is Russell Rd. This may be a problem for you
because you already have a location called Russell Rd from your birding in
Kenosha, IL. After entering your checklist for the Russell Rd Hotspot, go
to My eBird, My Locations, and rename the Hotpsot. You may want to call it
Barton—Russell Rd.
Renaming the Hotspot will not affect the name for anyone else. All other
birders will see the Hotspot name Russell Rd and you will see
Barton—Russell Rd. Everyone’s sightings, including yours, will show up at
the same spot on the map.
* *
What are the benefits of using a Hotspot?
· The Range & Point Maps are much easier to read.
· A concise list of all birders who saw a specific species at this
location is available.
· It will assist other birders in seeing what birds have been seen
at a specific location. If a person wants to see all the birds seen on
Poplar Island they can go to Arrivals & Departures and get a list of all
birds seen at this location. Birds seen on Poplar Island but entered as a
personal location will not appear on this search.
What locations are appropriate hotspots?
Hotspots can be any public birding location, but you should think about
scale when making a suggestion. Right now hotspots are represented by a
point on a map. With this in mind, a general rule of thumb is that the
smaller or more spatially refined the location, the better. This way we can
know exactly where you saw the birds and we're able to analyze landscape
variables associated with the location.
Hotspot naming conventions:
1. Single Locations
Single locations are places that do not need modifiers and are generally
well known or large scale birding localities (e.g., Ocean City Inlet or
Hart-Miller Island).
2. Sub-locations
Sub-locations are smaller scale birding locations found within a larger
primary location. These sub-locations are meant to allow more specific data
entry for locations found within a larger area of interest. For example,
one might bird Blackwater NWR. But within Blackwater NWR there are several
major birding locations including the Wildlife Drive and Tubman Rd. Trail.
Sub-locations should always follow the primary location separated by a
double dash (--). These would be listed as follows:
· Blackwater NWR—Wildlife Drive
· Blackwater NWR—Tubman Rd. Trail
Can I get a list of all the hotspots?
The easiest way to see where hotspots are found is to simply use the
mapping tool when you submit observations. There you can move around within
a state and click on the icon to see the name of each hotspot. Note, that
hotspots do take at least 24 hours to process through our system, so even
if our editors have approved a hotspot, it may not show up until the next
day.
For more information on hotspots go to:
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/about/hotspots
--
Joe Hanfman
Columbia, MD
############################
To unsubscribe from the MDOSPREY list:
write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
or click the following link:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=MDOSPREY&A=1 |