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WildLookout

About

About WildLookout

WildLookout is a photography decision engine for Whatcom and Skagit counties. It combines curated location knowledge with wildlife, seasonal and light data to answer one question: where should you go, and when, to get a good photo?

WildLookout logo: a camera viewfinder framing an eagle over mountains and water

How scoring works

Each opportunity score is a weighted blend of four factors, each normalized to 0–100:

Score =0.40 × Activity+0.20 × Seasonality+0.25 × Light+0.15 × Conditions

  • Recent activity

    40%

    Share of recently birded sites nearby where the species was reported, discounted when the last report is older. Used only for dates in the next week.

    Live: eBird

  • Seasonality

    20%

    How reliably the species is present in that month, from curated seasonal curves.

    Live

  • Light quality

    25%

    How well forecast cloud cover in the best morning or evening window suits the location's preferred light.

    Live: Open-Meteo

  • Conditions

    15%

    Worst-case rain chance and wind in that window, for comfort and gear safety.

    Live: Open-Meteo

  • The weights are initial product assumptions, not scientifically validated probabilities. A score of 84 does not mean an 84% chance of seeing the animal.
  • Missing data is left out, never counted as zero. Few observations can simply mean nobody was looking, so factors without enough data are excluded and the remaining weights are rescaled.
  • Confidence is reported separately, based on how much of the score is backed by data and on observation volume, age and location precision.

Data sources

  • Curated location and species guidance, maintained by WildLookout and marked as draft until verified.
  • Sun and golden-hour times are calculated locally with SunCalc.
  • Hourly forecasts from Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0), refreshed hourly and covering the next 16 days.
  • Recent bird sightings and checklist effort from eBird, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's community science database, refreshed hourly. We show only counts and dates, never observers or exact observation coordinates.
  • Planned: iNaturalist observations and NOAA CO-OPS tide predictions.
  • Basemap © OpenStreetMap contributors, served by OpenFreeMap. Terrain shading uses AWS Terrain Tiles (Mapzen terrarium).

Ethics and privacy

  • We never try to reconstruct obscured or private observation coordinates.
  • Nests, dens, roosts and breeding colonies aren't mapped or described.
  • Locations are public viewing areas. Follow posted rules, closures and pass requirements.
  • Wildlife welfare comes before any photograph: no baiting, no playback, no flushing.