Using Trip Reports For GBBC

Put all your birds in one place!

Trip Reports are an optional tool from eBird to help you summarize your bird observations from the 4-day count in a single, sharable report. This includes Merlin Bird IDs!

Trip Reports may be a great solution for educators, community groups, bird-walk guides, or others working with larger groups of people who are counting birds but want to display all the results in real time in one place.

Foundation for Ecological Security, India/GBBC

Making a Trip Report

  1. Go to https://ebird.org/mytripreports.
    • Reports must be created on a computer, but all of the data entered using your Merlin Bird ID or eBird mobile will be pulled into your Trip Report.
  2. If you already have an account please use the same username and password for submitting your bird(s) for the Great Backyard Bird Count.
    • If you have previously participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count, submitted to eBird, saved a bird with Merlin Bird ID, or participated in Project FeederWatch, NestWatch, Celebrate Urban Birds, etc., you have an existing account. If you don’t remember your username or password, you can recover or reset them when logging in to the app or on this screen. 
  3. Select Create Trip Report.
  4. Give the report a descriptive name (e.g., “GBBC 2022”).
  5. Set the dates of the report to the 4-day count (e.g.,18-21, Feb 2022).
    • Now automatically when you identify a bird in Merlin Bird ID or eBird mobile during this window of time, the observations will drop into your Trip Report.
  6. Choose your privacy settings:
    • “Limited” if you only want the report visible to people on the trip.
    • Use “Link-only” if you only want your report visible to people who have the link. 
    • “Link-only” and “Public” are currently very similar. The primary difference is that Public Trip Reports can be found via search engines like Google. BUT “Public” trip reports will likely be added to more places on eBird. 
  7. You’ll be prompted to select checklists.
    • If you have not counted yet during the dates assigned to the Trip Report, there won’t be any lists. You can skip this.
    • If you are entering lists from the past or from other users, continue reading on how to add them.

 Benefit of Using a Trip Report for GBBC

  • View a summary of all results in one place over the 4-days!
  • Multiple people can add to one report to see cumulative results.
  • Quickly and easily see what you saw each year for GBBC and how it changes over time.
  • Trip Reports can be made at ANY TIME—before, during, or after GBBC.

Adding Lists to Your Trip Report

  1. Above you set the dates of the report. Every time you enter data for that window of time, your data will automatically go into the GBBC 2022 Trip report.
    • NO NEED to add Merlin or eBird sightings to the report–that is magically happening for you!
  2. Consider bookmarking the web address to visit the Trip Report at any time.
    • This is especially helpful when sharing with friends.
  3. Include as many lists as you want. All the photos and audio clips you upload to your sightings are included in the trip report as well.
  4. Make sure to admire your work by exploring the species, lists, photos, audio tabs and from all your checklists–all your GBBC bird observations throughout the 4-days in one place!

Adding Other People to Your Trip Report

Sometimes it’s fun to share your report or build a report with others! To do this, you’ll need to add people to your report.
  1. Click on the Trip Report you want to add someone.
    • Select Edit and Manage People.
    • Enter the username or email of the person you would like to invite to the report.
      • When sharing, tap the “Invite” button! Do NOT tap “Done”.
    • Scroll down to the bottom of the page to verify the invite was sent.
      • If you don’t see their name below yours, try again. 
    • Give them “Commenter” or “Editor” access
      • Commenters can manage their own list from participating and comment on the report.
      • Editors can also manage which people are included in the report and edit the narrative.
  2. An automatic email will be sent to this person inviting them to contribute to the Trip Report.
    • Once they accept this invite, the word “Invited” will disappear.
      • They’ll need to accept your invite before you can share bird reports with them! (You can only send trip report observations to people who have accepted the invitation to join the trip) 
      • When someone joins your trip report, all of their own, personal bird observations from GBBC weekend will also be added to the report. But they’ll be given the option to omit some or all those lists if they want.

Sharing Sightings with Other Trip Report Members

  1. After people accept your invitation to join the report, you’ll be given the option to “Share all checklists to…” at the bottom of the sharing page.
    • Reminder: To access this sharing page, open a Trip Report (https://ebird.org/mytripreports) and tap “Edit” > “Manage People” 
    • Tap the “Share all checklists to…” button, select the people you were birding with and want to share all your GBBC bird reports with. 
    • Now you’ve shared the Trip Report AND bird observations with the people you were birding with during GBBC! 

Important: Adding other people to your trip report will not add your observations to their account. Read above for how to share bird observations after adding someone to your report.

Wrap-up Reminders

  • Trip Reports will summarize the birds you submit via the eBird or Merlin Bird ID throughout the GBBC weekend.
  • Trip Reports is a way to combine bird reports from the GBBC weekend, but you don’t need to make one to participate in GBBC! 
  • You can make these reports for past GBBC events as well! Or, other birding trips.