place.birds.sighting
A bird sighting logged by the observer, stored in their own repository. Honor system: `species` is what the observer believes they saw, not a verified determination.
Details · record, key tid
| Kind | record |
|---|---|
| Record key | tid |
| Authority | birds.place |
| Indexed |
Record
record · key tidProperties
count
integerHow many individuals the observer counted. Absent means one, or means they did not count.
minimum: 1maximum: 100000
Client-declared timestamp for when this record was written.
location
refRoughly where the bird was. Optional, and deliberately coarse — see #location.
media
arrayEvidence, in whatever form it was captured: a photo, a video, or a recording of the call. Ordered as the observer added it.
maxLength: 4
notes
stringAnything else the observer wants to say about the sighting: behaviour, plumage, who they were with.
maxLength: 3000maxGraphemes: 600
Client-declared timestamp for when the bird was seen. Distinct from createdAt so a sighting can be written up later. Not verified by anything.
Common name as the observer said it. Free text on purpose — always present, even when no code was resolved.
maxLength: 640maxGraphemes: 160
speciesCode
stringThe observer's asserted identification as a stable eBird/Clements taxon code (e.g. `norcar`). Present when they picked from the list; absent when they just typed something. May be a `spuh` or `slash` code when the identification is honestly partial.
maxLength: 32
thumb
blobThe image the observer chose to represent this sighting in compact views. Must be either an image in `media` or a `thumb` belonging to an item in `media`; clients should ignore unrelated blobs.
maxSize: 100000000accept: image/*
#location
objectProperties
Decimal degrees, as a string to avoid float drift. Deliberately coarse: clients should write no more than 3 decimal places (~110m). These records are public and permanent, and a bird sighting does not need a precise fix.
maxLength: 32
Decimal degrees, as a string. Same precision limit as latitude.
maxLength: 32
name
stringFree-text place name, as the observer chose it (e.g. "Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary, Chicago"). Independent of the coordinates and not verified against them.
maxLength: 640maxGraphemes: 160
#media
objectProperties
alt
stringAlt text describing the media for people who cannot see or hear it.
maxLength: 2000maxGraphemes: 400
The captured file. Audio is first-class here: a bird's call is often better evidence than a photograph of a silhouette.
maxSize: 100000000accept: image/*, audio/*, video/*
thumb
blobA still representing this media — for a video, a frame the observer chose. Derived from `blob`, never captured separately, so a client may regenerate it. Absent for media that is already an image.
maxSize: 2000000accept: image/jpeg, image/png, image/webp
Similar lexicons
semantic matchLexicons whose schemas describe something close to this one. Check them before publishing a new one that overlaps.
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place.birds.speciesPhoto
recordThe picture the observer wants to represent a species in their own collection. One per species; the record key is the taxon code (e.g. `easpho`), so the choice is addressable without a lookup. Purely a display preference — it asserts nothing about the bird.
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A biological record.