But if you see a male Northern Cardinal in roughly the same place on your way back, we recommend leaving your count at one. If you see a male Northern Cardinal in the first five minutes of your walk, and then a female later, count two. The goal should not be to have the highest count of a given species in eBird, but to provide an accurate count of what is present in the area you surveyed. The key is to aim for your best count of the birds you saw and heard in the area you sampled. We promote conservative counting in eBird. The Quick Entry feature on eBird Mobile makes this extremely smooth! Keeping multiple, shorter eBird checklists also makes counting more manageable by preventing numbers from getting too big (shorter checklists are better for science anyways!). We recommend keeping running totals for all species observed at least every 15 min to keep things manageable. The first law of bird counting is that you need to get in the habit of noting things down as you go. Snow Goose by Jan Allen/Macaulay Library ( ML139354761) The best part is that it gets easier the more you do it! Soon you’ll have a good idea of how many birds are present at your local birding sites with a glance. Using the simple techniques outlined below, you can come up with estimates for even the most difficult bird counting situations. If you estimate a flock as being 50 birds, and in reality it was 40, or 63, that's fine! Of course, if you can count exactly to 63, that'd always be better, but we understand that this isn't always possible. When counting birds, it's also important to keep in mind that general numbers are perfectly fine. This allows researchers to understand change in numbers over time, which is often one of the most important measures of how well a bird species is doing. An “X’ could be 1 or 1,000,000! By making your best estimate, you're providing valuable information on the abundance of birds around the world: not just where the species is, but also how many there are. The most important thing to remember is that your best estimate of numbers is always more useful than putting an “X’ to indicate presence. This is when it can get tricky, and where we're here to help. However, every now and then you'll be fortunate to run into a big flock of birds, multiple flocks, or big groups of mixed species. Most bird counting is really easy-you just identify what you see, and add the numbers together as you go. We encourage all eBirders to make their best estimate of bird numbers on every checklist. ![]() Modified on: Thu, 23 Mar, 2023 at 7:31 PM Solution home eBird eBird Next Steps How to Count Birds
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