eBird reviewer utilities—browser extension

Kent Fiala

Version 1.2.5, released 2 January 2023

Link to Firefox extension—Click link then “Add to Firefox”

Link to Chrome extension—Click link then “Add to Chrome”

Link to Edge extension—Click link then “Get”

This browser extension provides a number of enhancements for the eBird review web pages. I wrote the extension for my own use, but am now sharing it. Note that eBird review web pages are available only to eBird reviewers.

The extension works on Firefox and Chrome, desktop or laptop. I'm sorry I am not equipped to make extensions for Apple products. I'm also sorry that neither Firefox nor Chrome have much support for extensions on mobile devices.

To install in your browser, just click the appropriate link above, and then "Add" or "Get".

Enhancements for the traditional review page

The figure below identifies the features provided by the extension for the traditional review page.

Recall. Have you ever closed a record and then immediately realized you should have done something differently? It's a real nuisance to get back to that now-closed record, and the more so if you accidentally closed multiple records. The “Recall” feature, for those “oops” moments, recalls links to the last record(s) that you updated in either traditional or quick review. Click on the “Recall” hyperlink to display a line containing a clickable link to the last record(s). Clicking “Recall” a second time hides this line again.

Pro tip: if you are so unlucky as to need to correct a set of multiple records, keep in mind that as soon as you correct one, it becomes the recently updated record. To avoid losing track of your list, keep the window with the original list open and do all your work in separate windows.
Toggle deferred. When you have a lot of deferred records, it's nice to be able to selectively see only deferred, or only not-deferred records. Repeatedly clicking the “Toggle deferred ” hyperlink cycles through displaying all records, only non-deferred records, or only deferred records. Note: this only applies to records that are already displayed on the current page. If you have observations distributed over multiple pages, it will not bring in records that are on another page. You can get a similar result by sorting on status, but toggling is so much faster, and doesn't require re-sorting after. However, sorting may be preferable when you have multiple pages.

Note: the “select all” checkbox is disabled when some records are hidden. This is because “select all” would operate on hidden as well as displayed records, which would lead to confusion and errors.
Download CSV. Clicking this hyperlink downloads the displayed queue or search result in CSV format, which can be opened as a spreadsheet. The downloaded CSV file also has an added column named "Day of Year" that contains the month and day without the year. There might be different advantages of having a search result in CSV format, but one in particular is that you can either sort it by day of year or make pivot tables based on day of year, which is handy in planning filter changes. Note that this function operates only on displayed records; the downloaded file will not contain any records from other pages. Be sure to adjust your page size as large as necessary before downloading.
At the end of each line is a hyperlink to the eBird checklist for the observation. It's amazing how much nicer it is to have one-click access rather than two-step access for checklist pages.
Adjusts the widths of "Review decision", "Reason", and "Notes" inputs to values that I prefer. This is handy if you are really obsessive about being sure what your inputs are. For example, you see “Documentation Inadequate-Species” instead of “Documentation In”, and you see more of the beginning of your Note text.

Enhancements for Quick Review

There are six enhancements for Quick Review, five of which appear on one line just below the top panels, as illustrated below.

Recall. This is the same Recall as described for traditional review. Clicking on Recall opens a list of most-recently updated records, even they were removed from your queue. Clicking on Recall a second time closes this list.
eBird checklist. A link to the eBird checklist for this observation.
eBird species map for month. A link to an eBird map for the area near the checklist location, for the months of the year before, during, and after the month of the checklist. Surprisingly handy.
Hotspot or a personal location. The type of the checklist location. If a hotspot, the text "Location is hotspot" is a link to the hotspot page.
How submitted. Whether submitted via mobile, web, or upload. I'm sometimes curious about this. The standard report on mobile entry is hit-or-miss; sometimes there, sometimes not; and it doesn't identify web or upload submission.
Review reason and notes placement.

Enhancement for the History page

There is one addition to the History page.

At the upper right corner is a link labeled “eBird species map for season”. This is the same map link as described under Enhancements for Quick Review, and it shows distribution of accepted records for the species in the vicinity of the checklist location, during the months around the checklist's date.

All links provided by this extension open in new windows (or new tabs). I advise against following links forward or backward from any of these windows; it gets confusing. For best results, just close the window when you finish with it and go back to the original window.

I also have some other browser extensions that could be of interest.