How It Works
What this site shows
This site tracks bird sightings reported at Durham Central Park in Durham, NC. It pulls data automatically from eBird, the citizen science platform run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and displays any species observed within walking distance of the park.
Polling location & radius
Sightings are fetched for all observations within 2 km of the center of Durham Central Park:
- Latitude: 36.0005° N
- Longitude: 78.9002° W
This circle covers Durham Central Park and immediately surrounding streets. Sightings reported a bit further away — across the road, in a nearby yard — may be included if the observer’s reported location falls within 2 km.
How often we poll
The site checks eBird once per hour, every hour of the day. Sightings submitted to eBird within the last few minutes may not appear until the next hourly refresh. Sometimes not until later in the day depending on eBird. I have no idea why this takes so long sometimes. The footer of the main page shows the time of the most recent successful poll.
What data we collect
Each poll fetches two things from the eBird API:
- Recent observations — all species reported in the area over the past 14 days, including provisional (unreviewed) sightings.
- Notable sightings — species flagged by eBird as rare or unusual for this location and time of year. These are highlighted with a rare badge on the site.
Species photos come from the Macaulay Library and are cached locally. Cached photos are refreshed every 30 days.
Data storage
Sightings are stored in a local database. Duplicate submissions from multiple observers are deduplicated by species per day.