Greetings,
It’s been a while since the last explainer, so for those of you joining us more recently, or if you just happened to miss past explanations, here’s what’s going with these “weekly hotspots”:
Goal: gather data for every calendar week of the year for the most popular eBird hotspots in San Diego County. Here’s an example of completed bar charts (Robb Field mudflats):
https://ebird.org/barchart?r=L506275
Origin: John Bruin and Michelle Haglund started working on completing hotspot bar charts back in 2023 (or 2022?). In October 2024, John extended this effort to the broader SD birding community via weekly mailings to this list. In 2026, I took over the weekly mailings.
Progress: When John and Michelle began their efforts, there were only 100-150 hotspots with complete bar charts. When John began mailing weekly hotspots to this list, that number had more than *doubled* to 331! At the end of 2025 there were nearly 500 – an increase of 50% or so. In 2026 so far, we’ve completed at least 15 more (and made partial progress on many others).
Since there are fewer popular hotspots with gaps left, in 2026 I added a second list of hotspots that are not that close to completion, but have big gaps in data around the current calendar week.
Technical: Earlier in 2025, I mostly automated the data crunching process. I run a script every week to select hotspots for the upcoming week based on the most recent checklist data in eBird. As of now, I select all hotspots that have 10 or fewer weeks missing, plus additional hotspots if needed to get the count of hotspots listed to 10, choosing hotspots with fewest weeks missing (up to 15 weeks missing). The second list of hotspots includes hotspots with the fewest weeks missing that also have missing data for the previous and following weeks. The total count of hotspots listed each week currently is 30. Note: I don’t currently update the master hotspot list itself very often, so sometimes the names of the hotspots in my list might not correspond precisely to the current names of the hotspot in eBird. Sometimes hotspots will have been split or merged. If you notice a big difference, please let me know!
So, when you choose to bird at one of the listed hotspots, you are contributing valuable data that fills in the gaps! Big thanks to all of you who have already been participating, and to any of you considering pitching in. Please feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions.
Also, if you are submitting checklists under the California Bird Atlas project for the hotspots on these weekly lists, you are more likely to be contributing novel data to the Atlas, birding a location at a time of year that nobody else has before! Consider glancing at the new “Blockboard” tool before you go, to see which species are likely breeding but have not yet been Confirmed in the hotspot’s block:
https://californiabirdatlas.org/blockboardSee also:
And the lists:
Hotspots nearing bar chart completion (number = weeks missing):
Borrego Springs–Club Circle – 4
San Diego Bay–bait barges – 5
Swamis Seaside Park – 7
Agua Hedionda Lagoon–Harbor Dr. – 10
Borrego Springs–De Anza Country Club (private) – 10
San Dieguito Dr. south end – 10
Tide Beach Park – 10
Appleton Preserve, Fallbrook, CA – 11
Deer Canyon – 11
Laguna Mtns.–Morris Ranch Rd. – 11
Hotspots with 3+ week bar chart gaps:
San Pasqual Valley
Camp Pendleton–Macs Road Ponds (restricted access)
Dairy Mart Rd.–east riparian
Black Mountain Ranch Park
Shadow Mountain Park
Sunnyslope Park
Borrego Springs–NW residential
Gillespie Field (restricted access)
Discovery Creek Trail
stakeout Eastern Phoebe, City Heights (2020–24)
Tierrasanta Substation
W 16th St at Cleveland Ave
Borrego Springs–landfill
Valle Verde Park
Anza-Borrego Desert SP–Big Spring
Cottonwood Park (Chula Vista)
Cactus County Park
San Felipe Valley Wildlife Area–south
Calavera Hills Community Park
stakeout Abert’s Towhees, San Diego Co. (2024–2026)
Cheers,