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Best eBird Photos!


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39 minutes ago, PaulK said:

Not in my top 25 pictures of bushtits, but I think interesting in showing the feather structure in the wings and how it's propping the tail against the tree for balance.

This is another quibble I have with the rating system.  People don't give good ratings to shots from the rear or underneath, but these can be valuable for IDs.  I know we all have taken plenty of 'bird butt' shots, intentionally or otherwise, and UTC shots of warblers are invaluable.  It would be nice it those were rated higher, to reflect their value as ID tools.

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27 minutes ago, Charlie Spencer said:

This is another quibble I have with the rating system.  People don't give good ratings to shots from the rear or underneath, but these can be valuable for IDs.  I know we all have taken plenty of 'bird butt' shots, intentionally or otherwise, and UTC shots of warblers are invaluable.  It would be nice it those were rated higher, to reflect their value as ID tools.

Absolutely agree. I'm coming around to the worry that the rating system is actively detrimental to the library. (And to the extent that Merlin is trained on the library, actively detrimental to that too.)

 

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I do think that Merlin and the ebird species pages are looking for photos of the whole bird, as I’ve never not seen a picture of a whole bird on those. 

But, I do think that the various research papers that use/cite the Macaulay library and maybe(?) birds of the world utilizes headshots/non-full body photos to help identify or prove their hypothesis. I tried looking up research papers that use the Macaulay library to see if that was true, but kept running into paywalls.  
 

And then again, if they don’t want to use it they can just scroll by it and choose something else ??‍♂️

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20 minutes ago, Aaron said:

 Merlin

??‍♂️

Just for clarity when I'm talking about Merlin I mean training the algorithm for the photo id. I'm sure that's based on full photos and I'd be willing to bet they use some sort of cleaning process to remove any partial photos from the dataset before training. But I'm imagining a world where the service could be used to focus on a body part (head/tail/back) for a fine grained id. 

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8 minutes ago, PaulK said:

Just for clarity when I'm talking about Merlin I mean training the algorithm for the photo id. I'm sure that's based on full photos and I'd be willing to bet they use some sort of cleaning process to remove any partial photos from the dataset before training. But I'm imagining a world where the service could be used to focus on a body part (head/tail/back) for a fine grained id. 

Oh yes, I was just talking about the photos that they actually display on the app.

I do think Merlin uses some sort of filter as every now and the I get an email saying that ____ many of my photos/recordings have been used to ‘train Merlin’ so it’s definitely not utilizing everything.

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1 minute ago, Birding Boy said:

I have no problem with giving that a 5, it's a very solid image overall. I know this isn't changeable now, but I woulda tried to get eye level with the bird, but that's just my 2 cents.

Taken from a boardwalk over a pond….so frustrating for that. 

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1 minute ago, Birding Boy said:

I have no problem with giving that a 5, it's a very solid image overall. I know this isn't changeable now, but I woulda tried to get eye level with the bird, but that's just my 2 cents.

Oh wait, this is Florida where large carnivorous water loving reptiles are a thing.  Getting eye level probably isn't the best move to make down there...

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On 12/30/2021 at 1:45 PM, Birding Boy said:

Oh wait, this is Florida where large carnivorous water loving reptiles are a thing.  Getting eye level probably isn't the best move to make down there...

"I'll just rest my elbows on that log there....."

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20 minutes ago, Birding Boy said:

Yeah, they probably dragged the photo to the wrong species or something. There’s both goldfinches on that list.

The observer's profile has a link to their SmugMug website where there there is a misidentified LEGO as well. Regardless, I flagged the eBird pic.

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1 hour ago, neilpa said:

When I’ve tried to report misidentified birds before, the only option was “Inappropriate Content”

56 minutes ago, IKLland said:

Same.

Maybe it was different in the past.  This is what I've seen every time, including just now.  Or maybe you have to be logged on?

image.png.599cc4f17fae59298c88b9fdcaafb7b1.png

Edited by Charlie Spencer
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  • Kevin changed the title to Best eBird Photos!

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