EZbird

Making eBird easier!

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American Avocet

What is EZbird?

EZbird is dedicated to promoting the free, accurate and frequent use of eBird by active birders. EZbird is the fastest, easiest way to:

Enter sightings into eBird using your Blackberry or email-capable phone while in the field
Transfer sightings from old notebooks into eBird
Transcribe sightings from voice recorders into eBird -- EZBird allows you to do this with Bander's codes. It will put the species in the correct order and combine multiple records for the same species, so no addition or re-organization is required on your part.
Import sightings from excel, word or database files into eBird

It is free and requires no downloads or new software to run because it is based on your existing email program.

EZBird allows you to enter your sightings into eBird just by sending a short email to reports@EZBird.org. After you send your email, you will receive a reply containing an eBird excel file, and confirmation that your file was uploaded if you choose that option, within a couple of minutes. It works with Blackberries, iPhones, all desktop email systems and most other phone-based email applications.

This approach saves you time, because you can enter species codes (either 4-letter bander's codes or 6-letter EZbird codes) or the full English name of the bird. See the instructions page for guidance on using EZbird. If you have any questions, technical issues, suggestions or concerns, please email info@ezbird.org.

EZbird is, and will remain, free. The goal of EZbird is to maximize the number of birders who enter their sightings into eBird. Making people pay undermines this goal. I wrote it for myself because I felt there was a need for a simple, free way for me to enter my data into eBird while in the field. Now that it is written, I am happy to see new people starting to use it every day.

Enjoy! Dave Bell

Recent Changes, Updates and News:

Thanks to those of you who have provided suggestions and found bugs. Marshall Iliff, Brian Sullivan and Daniel Cooper were especially generous with their time and effort. The following changes are the result of your feedback. Thanks!

New Feature 11/18/09: New eBird "Random" protocol supported EZBird now supports the new "random" protocol. Use *p random or *p r (case insensitive) to specify this new protocol. I recommend that all eBird users familiarize themselves with all of the eBird protocols. See the eBird website for more information.

New Feature 11/16/09: Automatic header propagation EZBird now propogates header information for the following headers: date, country, state, protocol and number of observers (ie *e, *c, *s, *p, and *o). In other words, you only need to enter these headers one time at the top of your file, and they will be applied to the current and all subsequent checklists until you define a new value. You can continue to define them for every checklist if you choose. This change should reduce the amount of data entry required to use EZBird.

New Feature 11/14/09: Error messages EZBird now provides error messages for some common data-entry errors. For example, if you enter a country or state code that is something other than 2 letters, you will get an error message. Similarly, unrecognized date, time, mileage, duration, area or protocol will generate an error. The error messages appear near the top of the return email, and they are written to be clear and specific enough to allow you to correct the problem easily.

News 11/6/09: Article about EZBird by the good people at eBird.

New Feature 10/29/09 EZBird now makes more intelligent (okay, let's be honest: less dumb!) assumptions about which field protocol to assume if none is specified. Most of the time, the assumption is now "blank". However, I continue to recommend that you explicitly specify a protocol in order to avoid the possibility of a mistake. See instructions below for more information on specifying a protocol.

New Feature 09/25/09 You can now include your username and password in your email and EZBird will upload your file to eBird for you. See the Instructions Page for directions on using this new feature. Unless there are zero errors, you will typically need to log in to confirm unrecognized species or locations before you can submit your checklists. Still, this feature should save you about 2-3 minutes per checklist. More importantly, you can now complete your upload into eBird in the field using your PDA in a couple of minutes!

Update 09/27/09 EZBird now accepts bander's codes for subspecies groups, domestics, hybrids, slashs and spuhs.

New Feature 09/27/09 EZBird Code Wizard. If you are unsure of a species code, you can now send an email with the subject 'code' to reports@EzBird.org. You can also use the code wizard to get the scientific name of a bird. Just send an email with the full english species name, a bander's code, a scientific name or a 6-letter code and ezbird will respond back with the correct codes, names and scientific names for that species. See Code Page for more detailed instructions.

Contact us

Technical support, comments, suggestions, donations: info@ezbird.org

To process your field data: reports@ezbird.org. Note: No human being reads this mail! Please don't send questions, comments or technical support issues to this email address.