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Bird Brain

eBird Export Issues

eBird Export Date Problem

eBird has changed the format of the date field when it does its export. Bird Brain uses that date field to sort the data so that it can group the submissions together with the most recent ones at the top.

The changed date format keeps that from happening correctly. It also messes up the date field in Bird Brain, which is an essential field for life lists.

But there’s a quick fix you can probably do yourself. This procedure will change the format of the date field back to the way that is compatible with Bird Brain.

Here's a workaround to fix it

1. Open the MyEBirdData.csv file in Excel.

2. Click on the column header of the date field to select all the cells in that column

Date Column

3. Choose Format / Cells... from the Format menu.

Format Cells'

4. Choose Date as the Category, and

5. Choose 3/14/2015 as the Type from the Type list.

Type Date Format

6. Click OK. Excel on the Mac may give you a couple of warning messages when you try to save. You can ignore them and continue to save the file.

Then use the changed, saved MyEBirdData.csv file to import into Bird Brain.

Deleting records with bad dates from Bird Brain

If you've already imported some data with bad dates into Bird Brain, the best way to fix them is to delete the records that were imported without good dates and then reimport them from a MyEBirdData.csv file that has a corrected date.

Here’s how to easily find and delete the records with bad dates

First make a backup of your Bird Brain Records.USR file in case something goes wrong.

1. Open Bird Brain.

2. Choose Find Records.

3. Enter the character for a question mark in the date field.

4. Click Perform Find. You should get a list of records with bad dates.

5. Choose Delete All Found Records... from the Records menu.

Then reload the fixed MyEBirdData.csv file

1. Fix the dates in the MyEBirdData.csv file, as described above.

2. Choose Import Data from eBird from the Reports menu.

3. Click the Show My eBird Data button to bring in the corrected eBird data.

Show eBird Data

4.  Choose the submissions you want to add to Bird Brain, and click the Add button.

Add Records Button

Will this be fixed in the next version of Bird Brain?

Yes. We will fix it in the 2019 release of Bird Brain. In the meantime, you'll need to fix your MyEBirdData.csv file in Excel as described above.