eBird checklist compiler (Version 3.0.1)

Version 3: You can choose to have the output report as a web page instead of a workbook, and to sort by date.

What it is

You can enter multiple eBird checklists and/or trip reports into eBird checklist compiler, and it will return a single Excel workbook containing data from all of the checklists. This workbook has one spreadsheet for counts and a second spreadsheet for comments. The cells of the two spreadsheets are aligned.

Optionally, you can obtain the output as a web page instead of a workbook. The web page report is a single table. Any checklist or observation comments will be indicated by a blue highlight as seen in the example at the right. A comment is displayed when you hover over or tap a blue tag

Why?

What you do

1. In the “Input: Checklists or Trip Reports” form above, list one or more checklists or trip reports and click “Go!”. eBird checklist compiler will fetch the checklists from eBird.

   Let's say you have a checklist https://ebird.org/checklist/S60513355. You can copy-and-paste just the "S60513355", or you can copy-and-paste the whole "https://ebird.org/checklist/S60513355". If you enter multiple checklists, enter them on separate lines, or else just separate them with spaces or commas. For example you could enter

   https://ebird.org/checklist/S60513355
   https://ebird.org/checklist/S60533760
   https://ebird.org/checklist/S60593564
   https://ebird.org/checklist/S60652303

   or

   S60513355, S60533760, S60593564, S60652303

   or

   S60513355 S60533760 S60593564 S60652303

   Likewise for a trip report you could enter

   https://ebird.org/tripreport/3380

   or just

   3380

   You can enter more than one trip report; for example you could join two 30-day trip reports to get one 60-day summary.

2. Click Go! and wait for the checklists to be retrieved from eBird (it takes a while).
3. You'll be prompted to open or save the generated Excel workbook (if you choose that option).
4. Note: Excel may open in “PROTECTED VIEW”, displaying an “Enable Editing” button. You will need to click this button if you want to see the row and column sums; otherwise they are displayed as zeros. The presentation of the Enable Editing button may vary between different spreadsheet programs and versions.
5. Beware! The eBird API that this application uses suppresses data on sensitive species. If you have any checklists that contain sensitive species, you will need to add data for those species to the workbook manually. Similarly, the API will not download checklists that are hidden for any reason. If you have any hidden checklists you will have to enter their data manually. These are eBird policies; there is nothing this application can do about it.

Options

Three options are available:

Include scientific names

When checked, this option includes a column of scientific names next to the English names.

Output web page

As described above, this option results in web page output instead of a workbook.

Sort by ascending date

This option causes checklists in the output report to be sorted in ascending order by date. This is especially useful with trip reports, which are originally sorted in descending order by date.

Row and column totals

Row and column totals are provided by SUM functions. Often, the totals initially display as 0.

When Microsoft Excel opens a file that was downloaded from the internet, it opens in "Protected Mode" with all functions disabled. It will display an "Enable Editing" button that you must click in order to activate the functions that provide row and column totals, which otherwise will display as zeros.

Other spreadsheet programs may not do this but may have other requirements to get the functions working. For example, in LibreOffice you need to go to Tools->Options->LibreOffice Calc->Formula and set Recalculation on File Load->Excel 2007 and newer->Always recalculate.