Wednesday, March 23, 2011

What are the problem IDs?

eBirders

We recently published a news item highlighting the issue that many birders have identifying crows and ravens:

http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/crows_and_ravens

We plan to do more pieces like this in the future, mostly focused on the challenges of identifying common birds. The Carpodacus finches is another group that springs to mind. Many birders over-report Purple Finches in places where House Finches are common. The idea is to draw attention to some of the most frequently misidentified groups of birds in eBird, and help beginning birders get a better grasp on range, seasonality, voice.

Rare and unusual birds are easy for eBird editors to handle, as they are always flagged for review. But the real problem lies in the misidentification of species pairs where both are common in a region. 

What other groups of birds do you think we should highlight in this way? Accipiters are a no-brainer for inclusion!

Team eBird