NYSARC and eBird to Work Together!                 Posted 7/5/20

The New York State Avian Records Committee (NYSARC), and eBird are both committed to ensuring the integrity of rare bird records in New York State. eBird, launched in 2002 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is the world’s largest bird-related citizen science project, with more than one hundred million bird sightings contributed each year by birders around the world. NYSARC, established in 1977 as a committee of the New York State Ornithological Association (NYSOA), maintains the official Checklist of the Birds of New York State (https://nybirds.org/Publications/ChecklistNYS.htm), evaluates the documentation of significantly rare birds recorded the state, and renders decisions on the acceptability of rare bird reports based on documentation submitted via mail, email, or the online NYSARC Reporting Form. NYSARC archives all rare bird reports it receives, so that they will be available to researchers in the future.

NYSARC focuses on birds that are very rare in much or all of New York State and maintains a review list enumerating them (https://nybirds.org/NYSARC/NYSARClist.htm). It is important to note that many birds flagged as “rare” in eBird are not on the NYSARC review list. Nonetheless, many sightings of species that are on the NYSARC review list are showing up in eBird – but are not being submitted to NYSARC. In fact, many more records of truly rare birds have been submitted to eBird than have ever been reported to NYSARC. This is because so many birders have enthusiastically embraced eBird as their record-keeping tool of choice, while most of them are unaware of the importance (or even the possibility) of submitting rare bird reports to NYSARC in addition to entering them into eBird.

In order to maintain a complete inventory of verifiable sightings of rare birds in the State, it has become apparent that NYSARC must take on the task of reviewing eBird records. For our all-volunteer group of seven voting members and a secretary, this is a daunting task. However, slowly but surely, NYSARC has developed a plan and started to wade into eBird review. It is still a work in progress and is likely to continue to evolve in the next few years, but it is underway.

What can eBirders expect and how will NYSARC impact their birding lists? First, birders should realize that eBird supports the work of bird records committees around the world. The eBird administrators understand the importance of maintaining an accurate database of records, whether it is their own worldwide database of all bird sightings or a more restricted database of very rare bird sightings in New York State. As long as NYSARC does its work with competence and respect, eBird is likely to support its decisions.

As NYSARC gradually works through and reviews the many rare bird sightings in New York State since eBird’s inception in 2002, you may see a few records that were previously accepted by eBird that no longer appear in public output. We anticipate that this will occur only rarely, for a couple of reasons. One, eBird reviewers are highly competent, and two, NYSARC will make every effort to avoid unconfirming a record that was already accepted by an eBird reviewer. We will work with the eBird reviewers to obtain as much as or more information about an eBird record as was seen by the eBird reviewer. For example, perhaps you saw a widely reported Rufous Hummingbird near your home that you entered into eBird. NYSARC will work with the eBird reviewer to obtain as much information as possible about this sighting and to find out why the eBird reviewer confirmed the record. If, after reviewing all of this information, NYSARC determines that the record was not supportable beyond the species pair of Rufous/Allen’s Hummingbird, the eBird reviewer would request that eBirders edit and change the species to Rufous/Allen’s Hummingbird.

What can you do to help ensure that your super rare sightings will still appear in eBird output? In many cases you will not have to do anything different at all – just provide as much documentation in your checklist in the form of photos, audios, videos, and notes as you always have. eBird has made it very easy for birders not only to report a sighting but also to add documentation. However, if you have relied upon your reputation as an experienced birder to have your sightings accepted, understand that NYSARC stresses the importance of verifiable documentation. The Committee does more than simply place its stamp of approval on a sighting. It archives the documentation for each sighting so that future researchers, who may have more information about a species than we do at present, can look at the documentation and make their own decision. Of course, NYSARC considers the experience of the observer when making its decisions, but that is of secondary importance to the documentation at hand.
The reason why including documentation in your eBird checklist is much better than simply sending it to the eBird reviewer is that your checklist and everything in it is permanently archived by eBird. Information you send to the eBird reviewer separately is not archived in the eBird database, because the reviewer cannot make changes to your checklist. Only you can do that. Although NYSARC will try to obtain as much information as possible, the best way to ensure that all your documentation for a super rare bird will be available to anyone reviewing your sighting is to incorporate it directly in your checklist.

The NYSARC is excited to work with eBird in order to have as complete a picture of the rarest birds in the State as possible. We hope that all birders and eBirders will embrace this relationship as well.

New York State Avian Records Committee, July 2020:
Willie D’Anna, Chair
Gary Chapin, Secretary
Tom Burke
Doug Gochfeld
Pat Lindsay
Derek Rogers
Jay McGowan
Shawn Billerman
Email: nysarc44@nybirds.org