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Overview:
This dataset contains count data for bird species observed by novice and experienced bird observers. Each record corresponds to a 'checklist' completed during a sampling event of the eBird Citizen Science Project, run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society.
Dataset Location: eBird Observation Dataset; eBird Reference Dataset
Site Location: eBird logs recordings of bird observations worldwide; however, the available data with covariates is limited to Western Hemisphere and the Continental US 48.
Site(s) Georeferenced: Yes
Timespan: 2002 to 2013
Sampling Frequency: Irregular
Data collection summary/Methods: Data is collected by volunteers through a reporting 'checklist'. Species observations (visual or aural) are recorded with an estimate of count. Sampling event details and checklist type are also reported. A 'casual count' checklist is observations made while birding was not the submitter’s primary activity. A 'random count' checklist is observations made at a randomly selected location over a period of at least five minutes. A checklist is marked 'complete' if the observer reported all the species seen and heard to the best of his or her ability. 'Complete' does not require that all species in the area where observed or accounted for. eBird documentation suggests that a 'complete' checklist allows analysis of presence and absence of species.
Data collected: species ID, species count, location, distance traveled, area covered, sampling effort, no. of observers, checklist type, environmental and social covariate data
Known Issues: "Excel is unable to handle the larger data files in this dataset. The data from year 2008 contains more records than Excel supports (rows were truncated around 175,000); previous years contain fewer records. In our experiments with Excel, columns were truncated from the US48 checklist files and the extended covariates files." (Munson et al, 2013)
Best Practices: -Missing / unknown variable = '?', with correspoding covariate measurement error = NA.
- Species count reported as present without a count = 'X'.
- Group submissions replicate checklists present in the data set. Use PRIMARY_CHECKLIST_FLAG for set of unique checklists.
Conditions for use: "The eBird reference data is freely available for all usages." (Munson et al, 2013)
Citation/ Distributing Author: M. Arthur Munson, Kevin Webb, Daniel Sheldon, Daniel Fink, Wesley M. Hochachka, Marshall Iliff, Mirek Riedewald, Daria Sorokina, Brian Sullivan, Christopher Wood, and Steve Kelling. The eBird Reference Dataset, Version 5.0. Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society, Ithaca, NY, January 2013.
Supplemental resources: papers that use the data, etc.
Available via the EcoData Retriever: Yes or No