VARCOM-get-reports

This utility was created for VARCOM - interested in reports of select across the state of Virginia in given time span

This code is shared so that any one else could use it. It is written so that another state could use it. However, it is unsupported. See [./LICENSE]. Feel free to submit pull requests on the source to fix bugs or clone it and make your own version.

Use

get_reports

The get_reports script is used to generate reports of bird observations based on specific criteria. It queries the eBird API and processes the data to produce a report tailored to the needs of VARCOM or other organizations.

Usage

python get_reports.py --year YYYY -month MM [--day DD] -state STATE_CODE --input INPUT_FILE

Arguments

Example

python get_reports.py --year 2021 --month 04 --day 09 --region US-VA-003 -input varcom_review_species.json

create_review_document.py

The create_review_document.py script is used to generate a review document based on the processed data. This document can be used to manually review and validate the observations.

Use

python create_review_document.py --input INPUT_FILE --output OUTPUT_FILE

Arguments

Example

python create_review_document.py --input reports/records_to_review_2021_04.json --output reports/january_review.docx

Notes

Issues

There are a few geographic quirks that will be hard to capture in eBird, and may simply require manual intervention:

-Weird quirks in the Review List - There are a few instances of weirdly specific things in the Review List that the scripts won’t easily capture. For example, Long-billed Curlew is not reviewable in the “barrier island lagoon system,” which is not well-defined. In theory that means it would be reviewable elsewhere in Accomack or Northampton. Similarly, some species use roads as dividers (reviewable north of I-64, for example), which obviously don’t correspond with counties. Frankly, I am not sure where that process originated and why it is so random and inconsistent. Most, if not all, of those are legacy things. I would probably have to look at the individual species in question, but maybe we want to consider just abandoning these and making the Review List conform to county and/or physiographic province boundaries.

Customization and Maintenance

For the most part, behavior is driven by a json file which is documented here

Maintenance (probably yearly) is required to handle updates to taxonomies and state lists.