Southeast Arizona eBird Reviewers: Who Are They?

By Tom Brown

This Pygmy Nuthatch on Mt. Lemmon would be rare at Sweetwater Wetlands! Hemant Kishan

Southeast Arizona is well documented for its abundant and diverse bird species. What might not be as evident is the abundance of knowledgeable birders that also inhabits this wonderful area. The “cream rises to the top” as they say, and none more so than the individuals who tirelessly volunteer as checklist reviewers for eBird.org. In Pima and Santa Cruz Counties the team consists of Andrew Core, Laurens Halsey, and Molly Pollock, with additional help from Chris Benesh and many other "unofficial" members. Mark Stevenson handles the reviewing for Pinal and Cochise Counties. These are some of the most dedicated volunteers you'll ever find, but what exactly do they do?

Andrew, Laurens, and Molly are responsible for the constant review of all the daily bird submissions by eBird users in these two heavily-birded counties. Typically that can be 300 to 600 eBird checklists each per week and well over 50,000 per year that have been flagged as needing review! If you’ve ever received an email from an eBird reviewer, please know that they want your rare bird sighting to be correct, but that eBird strives for high quality data as it is used as both a scientific tool as well as a birder resource. To assist reviewers and keep the process efficient, please provide as much information about your sightings as possible.

Bushtit or juvenile Verdin? A frequent question for our local reviewers. Henry T. McLin

In 2015, Andrew and Laurens Halsey joined forces to continue a huge project that Andrew had been working on since 2012. This was to re-structure the way eBird looked at Pima and Santa Cruz Counties, by dividing them up into 27 different habitat polygons. Unlike most of the US where counties are smaller and have very similar habitat throughout, these two Arizona counties are very diverse and Pima is larger than some states! As a consequence, for example, the list of common species on Mt. Lemmon is considerably different from the list at Sweetwater Wetlands, a situation leading to many birds being marked as “rare” and needing review under the old system. After much consideration with the staff at eBird, they were given permission to begin this daunting task of not only dividing the two counties up, but then establishing the “review filters” by noting the seasonality of all expected birds for each polygon based on years of bird observations. No small feat, but worth it in the long-run to reduce the number of checklists that need to be reviewed. 

The work of updating the filters is never done as bird populations and ranges are always in fluctuation, especially now with climate change and human development as factors. To help with this, Molly Pollock has joined them in this never-ending but important endeavor. Southeast Arizona birders are very lucky to have this incredibly talented and dedicated group of people working not only for the birds, but for all the people who enjoy them! Thank you!

NOTE: If you don't use eBird and you're interested in learning about it, check out our eBird 101 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx0jQkbf6Ic

Tom Brown is a life long bird photographer and has had his images published in newspapers, magazines, on-line sites, and calendars internationally. After several years acting as a full-time guide, he is retired and volunteers leading field trips for Tucson Audubon.