new feature in google maps

[stvgarrett]

Hi all, I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this but there's a very nice feature in google maps that I think will be of benefit to boards like this, just wanted to put it out there for thoughts / comments.

It makes it possible to specify *exactly* where you spotted a bird. Find the location on a google map, drop a marker on the map, and it displays the precise latitude and longitude of that marker.

You can then paste the coordinates in a posting like this:
43.589789, -79.516106
Now here's what's really nice about it. If you are reading the posting, open Google Maps or Bing Maps in another browser tab or window, and then cut and paste the coordinates from the posting into the "Search Maps" input field of google maps or bing maps. Voila - you will see a green arrow on the map that shows you exactly where this location is. Of course you can also input them into a GPS but if it's not portable and you are in the middle of a park that may not help.

Or when you are posting, you can go one step further and get the link to the map:
http://goo.gl/maps/aHIb
Now if you are reading the posting, just click on this link, and look for the green arrow on the map. This example shows where I spotted the Northern Shrike at Colonel Sam Smith park yesterday.

Here's how you get the coordinates when posting. At this point it is a "labs" feature, meaning experimental. I think if lots of people use it google will migrate it to "official" status.
Open Google Maps, look at the top right of the browser window, you will see a green lab beaker beside the word "New!" which is the link to the "lab" features. Click the beaker, and a popup window will appear with the various lab features. Scroll down to this:

LatLng Marker
Adds an option to the context menu that lets you drop a mini-marker showing the latlng of the position at which the cursor was pointing when the context menu was evoked

Click Enable, then click the Save Changes button at the bottom and close the popup window.

Now you are ready to try it out. Sorry to say but this next step may not work in Internet Explorer (it works in earlier versions but not IE9 which is what I have installed). If it doesn't work in your version of IE you can use either Firefox or Google Chrome. Open google maps (maps.google.com) and pick a point on the map. The more you zoom in, the more accurate the lat & lng coordinates will be. Right-click with the cursor on that point. You should see an option in the right-click menu: "Drop LatLng Marker" - choose that option. If it works, you will see a small marker with the lat & lng displayed. Now click and drag inside that marker to highlight the coordinates, then type ctrl-C (or whatever the Apple equivalent is if you are using a Mac) to copy the coordinates, and ctrl-V to paste them into your posting.

Or if you want to create a link to a map that displays a green arrow pointing to the spot, just paste the coordinates into the "search map" field of google maps, click the "search maps" button, and you will see the result of the search with the green arrow. Then click the "Link" button at the top right corner of the map, and copy and paste the link that is provided from the map into your posting.

I want to say this is "easy" but I'm not a good judge of what's easy for the average person that posts here so I'm looking for feedback. My thought is that creating the coordinates may be tricky but the average user should be able to figure out how to use the coordinates when reading a posting (especially if the poster creates a link to the map!)

Basically I would encourage anyone that is comfortable with it to use this technique when posting a sighting.  My suggestion is that if you do provide the lat & long coordinates but no map, then provide a brief explanation of how to use them. For example, include instructions like this:
"open google maps and copy and paste those coordinates into the "search maps" input, you will see a green arrow on the map corresponding to those coordinates"

Final point - I am aware of the protocol that says that  locations of certain sensitive high-demand species like owls should not be posted, so posters should be careful about broadcasting precise coordinates.

[Brian Bailey]

Welcome to the board and yes, good idea. I used this yesterday in an ONTBIRDS post because it avoids ambiguity.  Vague or incomplete directions are a chronic problem there.

I've been using some of these tools for a while and even though they're "Labs" tools, I've never had any problems with them.

BB

[stvgarrett]

Thanks Brian. The new mapping tools that are available are amazing and getting better and it seems like the time is right to start to use them wherever possible. It's not quite perfect - I don't like the fact that the map isn't centered at the point you specify when you search for the coordinates (sometimes the marker is off the screen and you have to zoom out to find it), and it throws in spurious search results for local restaurants or whatever that might confuse people instead of displaying only the marker. But it will get better!

I just looked up your posting for the Glaucous gull on ONTBIRDS, nice shot BTW. Yesterday there was a pretty impressive raft of gulls in Humber Bay east. I counted at least 3 Glaucous bobbing along with the rest.
They were right here http://goo.gl/maps/Iary

[Brian Bailey]

That's a good find! We generally don't get many of the "white winged" gulls, especially Glaucous, in the west end.  I probably wouldn't have posted to ONTBIRDS except when I told a keen west-end birder, he got quite excited since he'd only ever seen 1 in 5 years of birding.

BB

[stvgarrett]

Two things: first I didn't realize that for the Lat&Lng marker feature to be available every time you visit google maps, you need to sign into your google account. Don't have one? It's free.

Second - skip the Lat&Lng marker and forget about signing in. There's an easier way to generate the latitude and longitude of a point on the map. Just right-click when the cursor is on the point of interest, and from the context menu that appears select "What's Here?"
A red marker appears on the map and the latitude and longitude coordinates appear in the Search Maps input box. You can then select the "Search Maps" button, and when the map is re-drawn you select the Link button at the right to get create a link to the map which you can then copy and paste into a posting.

[Lloyd]

Google Earth and geocaching.com have collaborated to provide not only a simple copy & paste coordinates feature but also the names, code numbers and description of geocaches in the area. I especially like it because one can easily see the terrain and trails, etc., that will lead us to the cache. Ideal for birding, this feature gives a real view (topical) of the terrain the bird was spotted in.