There was a rare bird reported yesterday in my area, but it doesn't show up in BirdsEye. Why not?

Here's how BirdsEye works: Sightings of rare birds generally appear in BirdsEye within an hour of being confirmed by the eBird reviewer. However, eBird reviewers can take anywhere from minutes to weeks to review and confirm records, and unfortunately that process is out of our hands.

We get people writing to ask about situations like this, and most often the sightings is not showing up yet because it is waiting for review by eBird. Other possible reasons include: that the sighting was marked invalid or is less than 30 minutes old. 

You should still be able to see rare and notable birds in your region regardless of whether they had been approved by tapping on the Notable and Rare Birds menu item.