Monday, March 28, 2011

eBird Utah!

The Idaho birding listserv, IBLE, regularly reports the County Big List #'s mentioning the most recent species seen and what the total is year-to-date.  I kind of miss that.  I don't know that anyone one in Utah is tracking or publishing that information.  Then I realized that eBird has that reporting functionality built in.  You can click on the "View and Explore Data" tab and then on "Arrivals and Departures".  From there you can filter by country, state, and county and see what the county total is for number of species as well as in what order the birds were reported.

Below are the current rankings of the counties in Utah on eBird.  The number represents the number of species reported year-to-date (YTD) as of today.

Utah 143
Washington 142
Salt Lake 123
Davis 119
Box Elder 115
Cache 108
Duchesne 83
Weber 71
Millard 63
Tooele 62
Morgan 60
Uintah 52
Juab 50
Wasatch 50
Grand 44
Summitt 40
San Juan 37
Sevier 26
Sanpete 23
Garfield 17
Kane 15
Beaver 9
Daggett 7
Rich 2
Carbon 0
Emery 0
Iron 0
Piute 0
Wayne 0
Counties with less than 50 reported species YTD are shaded in blue.

One of the inherent weaknesses of eBird data and maps is geographic coverage, especially out west where there are millions of acres of uninhabited wilderness.  Large centers of populations have more birders and therefore more reports and more species seen.  Some Utah counties certainly need an eBird Champion! One person reporting birds from these less-birded counties can make a huge difference.  Perhaps when you are planning a birding outing in Utah, you might want to pick one of these counties and give it a little bit of eBird love!

Utah is a huge beautiful place and discovery is awaiting us!

3 comments:

  1. You are going to have to make a trip down to Fremont, so there will not be a big fat zero for Wayne County! (go Grandma)

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  2. @Kent & Wendy - I am actually thinking about a new blogging segment combining family history and birding, by visiting the places my ancestors lived, like Wayne County, doing some family history research, cemetery visits, treading where their feet have trod, and seeing the birds they may or may not have noticed when they lived there once upon a time.

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  3. Oh Man! You make me want to fly out there and help! I would love to count birds in one of those under-counted counties! Thanks for posting this!

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