Date: 3/3/26 4:14 pm From: Paul Conover via groups.io <zoiseaux...> Subject: [labird] eBird photo suggestions from Van
Labird,
Posting the following note for Van:
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Some notes on eBird photo uploads from official eBird guidelines:
EBird photographers -- it's pretty obvious that many of you have not
read through eBird's well-written, succinct guidelines, or forgotten
them, so here are some reminders, with quotes indicating material taken
directly from those guidelines.
Multiple images of the same species
“We encourage you to add multiple photos that show different
individuals, parts, angles, or behaviors of the species as well as
photos illustrating different individuals seen while you are out
birding. However, multiple images should illustrate differences and *not
be nearly identical frames from the same burst of shots.”*
Time/date stamps
“Similarly, if your camera puts a time and date stamp onto the image
automatically, consider disabling this function. The time and date are
already stored in the metadata of the image and do not need to be
displayed on the image itself.”
Back-of-camera images
“When you’ve photographed a rare bird, it can be tempting to take a shot
of your camera’s LCD screen and upload it to your eBird list for quick
documentation purposes. While this can be a reasonable method of getting
the word out in a hurry, please *remember to go back and replace the
placeholder images*. Back-of-camera images may not be high enough
resolution to show critical details, lack important metadata such as
date and time, and are not useful for projects like MerlinVision.”
Photo ratings (in my view, which is shared with many people), is that
many eBird photos are drastically over-rated, especially if the bird is
colorful or rare; eBird guidelines make it clear that ratings should be
independent of how pretty or rare the bird is. Before rating photos,
please skim through eBird’s short guidelines on this – see link at end.
Some of the salient points are:
*“ *Watermarks: *Lower rating by 1-4 stars* depending on the size and
obtrusiveness of the watermark.
“1 Star:**Very poor quality. Very low resolution or very poor focus;
bird may be very small or obscured in the frame or have extremely bad
exposure. *In general should only be uploaded as record shots,* if still
identifiable.
