Reporting Owls on eBird?

[BetCrooks]

Having just found my first owl in a well-travelled GTA park  (that wasn't pointed out to me by someone else) I'm curious what people do with owl sightings. Do you report them on eBird immediately? Do you report them but wait a few weeks? Do you report them to some other program instead? Or do you just not report them?

I've heard anecdotes about people damaging trees to get better sight-lines to roosting owls; scaring owls so much they have to leave an area to get any rest; and generally being ill-mannered (blocking public paths, roads etc with camera gear, illegally parked cars and so on.) I've even read of people catapaulting live mice with slingshots towards owls to get a photo. It's left me questioning whether it's a good idea to report owls publicly on a mechanism like eBird, especially for a small location where it wouldn't be too hard for someone to re-find the bird.

What do you do when you find an owl? Does it depend on the circumstances?

[thouc]

Here's the guideline for how to report sensitive bird observations in eBird: http://help.ebird.org/customer/portal/a ... 9?t=400913

[Paul O'Toole]

There are always a few looney tunes out their doing this but in general most are normal Best to follow the guidelines in the link provided by Thouc.

[Brian Bailey]

I have used the option to hide the checklist. It truly is hidden from all but you (and probably the regional coordinator), no matter how anyone searches the database. You can also put the sensitive bird on a checklist by itself.


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[BetCrooks]

Thanks for all the replies and useful advice! I'll follow the eBird suggestions.

[Steve Hood]

Does it take a while before your first report is accepted?  I reported a sighting of a Towhee yesterday but I don't see it on the main Ontario Recent sightings page.

[Brian Bailey]

There shouldn't be any delay unless it's flagged as rare, in which case it doesn't show in the public database until the regional coordinator accepts it. Even then, it will appear your sightings when you log in.


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[Steve Hood]

Unfortunately we do have to be careful where we post. The London paper recently posted the location of a local GTO nest which attracted crowds.  Apparently, someone even used a drone to try and get a better picture. Much stress was caused on the birds. A few days later the paper posted the following.

http://www.lfpress.com/2016/04/15/offic ... -in-london