Date: 2/24/26 11:14 am From: Tom Benson via groups.io <thomasabenson...> Subject: [inlandcountybirds] eBird and California Bird Atlas hostspots
San Bernardino, Riverside, and Imperial County birders,
In your recent eBirding, you may have noticed some new hotspots at your favorite birding locations. This is a quick note to explain why those new hotspots exist and why you should or shouldn't use them. If you use eBird at all, please at least read through the next paragraph. If you are participating in the California Breeding Bird Atlas (CBA) project, please read through the following paragraph as well. I've tried to be as succinct as possible. Feel free to adapt and/or share this on other platforms as appropriate.
The CBA is run through eBird, and data for this project is being collected in atlas "blocks." Sometimes, an existing eBird hotspot overlaps two or more of these atlas blocks. In some of these cases, additional hotspots have been created so that atlas data for the hotspot can be collected for each of the blocks in which the hotspot occurs. These additional hotspots are named in a specific format to denote that they are for CBBA use and include the name of the atlas block in which they occur. For example, Wildwood Canyon State Park occurs in two atlas blocks. The original hotspot occurs in the "Yucaipa SE" block, so that hotspot remains unchanged. A second hotspot has been created for the portion of Wildwood Canyon State Park that occurs in the "Forest Falls SW" block and has been named Wildwood Canyon State Park (CA Atlas - Forest Falls SW). If you are eBirding and not participating in the CBA project or are keeping a single checklist at a hotspot across multiple atlas blocks, please use the original hotspot as your location. If you are are participating in the CBA, please read below for guidance on using hotspots.
First, thank you for participating in the CBA! If you're not participating and you would like to, please visit eBird's California Atlas site for more information. This site has excellent information on how to choose a hotspot/location for your atlas birding, but I'll provide a brief summary here as well. When you are eBirding for the CBBA, please use an eBird hotspot if one is available and appropriate to the area that you are birding. If you are birding an area and enter a new atlas block, you should end your current checklist and start a new one. If an appropriate hotspot is available for your new checklist, please use it. If an appropriate hotspot is not available, please make a new personal location for this area. If you intend to bird this location regularly for the atlas, it would be helpful if you named it according to the naming convention: Hotspot Name (CA Atlas - Block Name). If this is an area few others are likely to bird, please keep it as a personal location. If this is an area you think other birders are likely to bird regularly, please suggest your personal location as a hotspot.
If you have any questions about the atlas hotspots or about the CBBA in general, please feel free to reach out to me.
Tom BensonRedlands, CA
https://ebird.org/atlascalifornia/homehttps://www.californiabirdatlas.org/
