[Birding-Aus] WA Sightings
Frank O'Connor
It would be good in some ways to see the current list of WA sightings on
Eremea. The mega sightings are already posted. I was approached to
moderate it, but I don't have time. I have often fallen behind on the
current list. There are a few reasons for not simply switching to Eremea.
Birds Australia WA prints a quarterly newsletter WA Bird Notes. This
includes a summary of the sightings. However, the sightings for the March
WABN need to be summarised by the end of January, so WABN is at least a
month behind if you are looking for rarities to go looking
for. Historically, there was a written list kept in the office and you
could call the office (during office hours) and ask for the
sightings. There was also a separate phone number for the sightings (now
the BAWA fax number). Again, this wasn't very satisfactory for rapid
distribution of information.
Birding-aus helped greatly for the main rarities, except that few WA
birders subscribed to birding-aus. This has changed, but it is still under
utilised by WA birders.
So in 2001, I proposed that BAWA should expand the web site that Allan
Burbidge had created on his web site. The main reasons were for the
sightings, and also to put the series of WA bird guide brochures online. I
was appointed the web site administrator. I also created an email
sigh...@birdswa.com.au for people to report the sightings. That way when
I pass the role on to someone else, the email would not change. One
advantage was that this allows sightings other than those unusual enough
for WABN to be reported.
I am away many times during the year, so it was never meant to be a site to
get information about the rarities. It simply reports the date, observer,
species and location. Rarities should be reported to birding-aus and the
birdswa email list. The WA Sightings (and the Eremea list) are moderated
and so there will always be a delay. Emails to birding-aus and birdswa can
also include full details about directions, behaviour, etc.
I am still the 'convenor' of the WA Rarities Committee. Basically this
means that at the end of each quarter (end of January, April, July and
October) I select out the sightings that are worthy of inclusion in the
next WABN, and I email this list to the other people on the rarities
committee. For the major rarities, I have usually forwarded them the
information that I received at the time. The WA Sightings are split into
four regions (Metropolitan, South West, Arid and Broome) plus WABN also
includes Ashmore, Cocos and Christmas. Eremea doesn't allow me to break up
WA (it could do it but it probably wouldn't make sense). To save me time,
I highlight the records that will probably be included in WABN in red (bold
for the major rarities and bold capitals for the mega rarities).
I archive the sightings once I have done the summary, and start a new page
(with links to the archive).
Late in 2008, the national office of BA agreed to host the BAWA web site,
and Jen Sutfin did a sensational job within the limits that the software
provided. But this didn't enable the sightings to be taken over, so I
continue to maintain this (on the BAWA development domain birdswa.org.au)
and the national web site links to it. You should not assume that the
sightings will continue to be on that domain. You should link to
birdsaustralia.com.au/wa and then click on the WA Sightings link on the right.
I proposed to Jen that BA create an Australian Sightings database with the
following fields :
1. State (e.g. WA, Ashmore, Cocos, Christmas, ...)
2. Region (e.g. for WA would be Metropolitan, South West, Arid, Kimberley)
3. Date (e.g. a simple date 05/01/2010, or a date range, or something like
early 12/2009 - all are possible for this field)
4. Observer (or observers)
5. Species (or list of species - but could be free text to allow some
comments such as 1st record, or photographs, or ... But sometimes you need
to write snipe sp. or swiftlet sp. to complicate matters)
6. Rarity Level (say 1 to 5 with 1 being mega rarity - this would allow the
entry to be displayed differently. e.g. 1 would be bold capital red, 2 is
bold red, 3 red, 4 other, 5 unconfirmed / possible. Note that this is
tricky as each species in the list needs a level)
7. Date Reported (this allows the archiving ability - note that I do get
records that are very old, so the date of observation cannot be used for
this - the user would then also have the option of displaying in date of
sighting order or in date reported order with most recent first)
This would allow me to extract the WA records reported since my last
summary for WABN for rarity levels 1 to 3, sorted within region by
taxonomic order and date of sighting. This structure could be used by
every state.
A secondary functionality was to create an email list where people could
register to receive sightings. They would check a box for each of the
states, regions and levels they wish to be notified for.
About this time, Eremea was created. Jen couldn't do the above with the
current software anyway, so this hasn't progressed, and is probably
unlikely to progress.
I know that some people are upset that the sightings are moderated. They
need to be moderated so that any queries can be handled. Some people get
upset if you question a sighting, but they need to understand that this
must be part of the process. This is very tricky. The hardest I have had
to deal with is Ian May's report of large numbers of Forest Kingfishers on
Weaber Plains at Kununurra. This would be the first official record for
WA!! There have been a few previous unofficial reports (including one by
me at the south end of Lake Argyle but I also failed to document it). The
committee decided that Ian's report was not enough to be included in WABN
(and hence would be reported as a 5 above), but I note that it has been
reported in other magazines. Black Kites in the south west has been
another contentious issue.
The current situation is not perfect. I have reached the point where I
would be happy to pass the role of WA Sightings on to someone. The current
method requires them to know how to create and edit a web page (I use Front
Page but any program would be suitable, and also to be able to judge each
sighting. It is very difficult to find someone with these abilities and
with the time. I have a lot of birding planned this year, which means that
I will be away much more, and that the WA Sightings will fall behind more
than usual. This could come to a head at the end of October when I will
probably be away when the December summary needs to be done.
In summary, for WA sightings :
1. Use the birding-aus (and birdswa) email lists to report sightings,
especially mega sightings.
2. Please copy sigh...@birdswa.com.au in for rare or unusual WA sightings.
3. You are welcome to also post it on Eremea.
4. To look at the sightings, use birdsaustralia.com.au/wa as your link and
then click on WA Sightings (If you link directly to the WA Sightings, then
it will fail to work sometime in the future when things are improved)
This email wasn't intended to be this long!! But as you see, even something
seemingly simple as reporting sightings can have complexities and other
issues that are involved.
_________________________________________________________________
Frank O'Connor Birding WA http://birdingwa.iinet.net.au
Phone : (08) 9386 5694 Email : foco...@iinet.net.au
===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to: birding-a...@vicnet.net.au
===============================
Dave Torr
we will soon launch an updated site (development site at boca.net.au - this
will not be the final URL) which will include many of the birdline feeds.
I would add two things to your summary - firstly that if birders are going
to post reports on Eremaea (rather than to a Birdline of some sort) it would
be much more useful if they were complete lists of sightings they made
rather than just the highlights - checking Eremaea for the Western treatment
Plant at Werribee reveals that the apparent chances of seeing birds such as
Black Swan (which I would rate as 99+%) are rarely much above 50% -
presumably because many people submit a record for the Long-toed Stint they
saw but not the rest of the birds.
Secondly - and this is an issue for Eremaea, Birdpedia and the Atlas (and
any other systems out there!) their usefulness to future generations I am
sure would be enhanced if they allowed for the inclusion of subspecies. I
realise that there is no "official" ssp list in Aus but given the rapid
changes in taxonomy I am sure there will be instances in the future when we
will regret that we did not record a ssp as we do not now know what "new"
species was seen.
2010/1/5 Frank O'Connor <foco...@iinet.net.au>
michael norris
But what are the objectives of all these reporting/recording systems?
It would be great if you and other people managing them were to set up a
private blog or similar to work for greater clarity on what each of you is
trying to achieve.
For instance, Birdline Vic (on Eremaea) is ".....a site for the reporting of
rare or unusual birds outside their normal range, unusually high or low
numbers, early or late arrivals or departures for migrant species and
interesting behaviour or unusual habitat usage.'
So it's like the lists (also moderated and also unauthenticated) printed in
the Bird Observer.
Quite different from the Atlas which, to my mind, should be regarded as the
authoritative archive for monitoring bird distributions (and sites). It
also needs to be resourced properly (pay per view?), in the same way that
Simon Mustoe proposes an "instant" rarity reporting system would need to be
funded.
Michael Norris
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Torr" <davi...@gmail.com>
> Thanks for the summary Frank - I have an interest as webmaster of BOCA and
> ......
> I would add two things to your summary - firstly that if birders are going
> to post reports on Eremaea (rather than to a Birdline of some sort) it
> would
> be much more useful if they were complete lists of sightings they made
> rather than just the highlights ........
Dave Torr
systems then it is not up to me!
A national birding discussion group - Birding-Aus is clearly the only real
candidate for that
Both national and state birdlines - here is where we get into middy waters
as Eremaea does a good job in the 6 or so state/areas that it covers but is
lacking in some places. But the Eremaea national birdline seems to get
little traffic, as people report national rarities more on Birding-Aus.
Would be nice in my humble opinion if all rare sightings went to Eremaea
rather then Birding-Aus and the relevant moderators decided whether to
escalate to the National one.
And finally a recording database of which the Atlas is the only serious
contender - again I would love it if Eremaea and Birdpedia moved out of this
area - but I do think there needs to be more consensus as to what is really
needed in this area. As I said - subspecies to me are essential. Many
birders (like myself) want to keep all of their lists in one place and
whilst the Atlas is great for formal surveys it is less good for "birds I
saw whilst driving from Melbourne to Canberra" - which are still valid for
my personal year list but not much good for scientists.
Finally I wonder about the long term future of any site that is maintained
and run essentially by one person. In the short history of the internet many
websites have come and gone. It is I guess my experience that individuals
are much more likely to have good ideas and implement them quickly than
organisations, but that organisations (such as BA and BOCA) are much more
likely to be around in some form or other running whatever passes for a
website in 50 years time than the excellent sites that today's dedicated
individuals run. So how does one harness the dedication and drive of the few
dedicated enthusiasts behind Birding-Aus, Eremaea, Birdpedia and others
whilst at the same time trying to ensure that their data will be still
available to researchers in 50 years time when unfortunately some of the
individuals behind these sites may no longer be as active as they are now!
2010/1/5 michael norris <meno...@ozemail.com.au>
Peter Ewin
Dave,
I have avoided entering this debate but I think you are possibly missing one important database which comes down to how data is used. The various online options you mention (Birding-Aus, Birdlines, etc.) might get some of the rarities but some don't make it until long afterwards or not at all (and the BARC deals officially with any it receives).
The Birds Australia Atlas is one site for inclusion of records but various of the State (and the Federal) governments have databases for storing of records. This is particularly important for Threatened Species legislation. In NSW where I am based DECCW has the Atlas of NSW Wildlife and when development applications come in the first source for searching for TS records is this database - other sources are often (mostly?) used but the minimum that I would expect is the DECCW Threatened Website and the NSW Atlas. Therefore if you want records to be useful in the process of government then you will need to submit to the relevant government authority (if one exists). Data in this database is also used for many other processes, including determination of offset conditions, native vegetation approvals, park management and of course targeting recovery actions.
Governments will always have database (except the ACT which I think uses the COG bird database) because threatened species other than birds (including plants, mammals, invertebrates, etc). Ideally there would be agreements between Birds Australia (and other organisations that have records) and the governments to exchange data (I think something like this exists in Victoria) but having been involved in this in the past, this can be very difficult to organise (data these days can be used as a income stream). I would be surprised if the Lesser Yellowlegs (as an example) has within the DECCW Atlas, but as a vagrant it is of limited use for conservation planning (similarly I think there is one record of the American Golden Plover from Boat Harbour). Records of Painted Snipe (such as the recent Dubbo record) should be added as these would be used in planning decisions.
I think the other databases have their place (though the continued proliferation frustrates me endlessly) but I would say that if you want to see your records used in making conservation decisions involving government, in NSW at least, records need to be contributed to the Atlas of NSW Wildlife.
Just my two cents worth (which has been spent a number of times).
Cheers,
Peter
> Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2010 16:12:03 +1100
> Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] WA Sightings
> From: davi...@gmail.com
> To: meno...@ozemail.com.au
> CC: birdi...@vicnet.net.au
_________________________________________________________________
If It Exists, You'll Find it on SEEK Australia's #1 job site
http://clk.atdmt.com/NMN/go/157639755/direct/01/www.birding-aus.org
Peter Shute
I would imagine that government databases might be similar, so using Eremaea and Birdpedia to enter data for forwarding remains the only way to allow access to such reports for now.
Peter Shute
--------------------------
Sent using BlackBerry
Nigel Jackett
eBird will be able to do almost everything you desire, and is expected to
cover Australia this year. Also, it is already apparently the largest
wildlife database in existence, and much of the data contributed by birders
is used by scientists for research and conservation purposes. It also it
fantastic for keeping lists. You may want to check out these examples to see
for yourself what it's capable of:
http://www.ebird.org - Homepage of eBird
http://www.ebird.org/content/newzealand - New Zealand eBird example, for
some reasaon it's already made it there and not here!
Cheers,
Nigel
Dave Torr
proportion of birders can be persuaded to move from the systems they use now
it is likely to end up as just another place that has a few % of records.
Obviously in the long run people will use whatever systems work the best and
neither I nor BA nor BOCA nor anyone else on this list can tell people what
to use, and there will always be new ones coming along, but the more
fragmented the collection of data becomes the less useful it is both for
normal birders and for scientists. I personally would much rather have one
place to look to find data than many places, especially as tools like Google
cannot extract data readily from such databases (yet!). To a certain extent
bird-o and the new BOCA website will solve some of these problems, but the
more systems that are in use the harder it becomes for anyone to get an
overall picture of what is happening.
2010/1/5 Nigel Jackett <nigel....@gmail.com>
Paul Dodd
Surely the solution is to allow people to record their sightings using
any system they like but to have some form of data interchange
standard - especially to the BA Atlas. Data exchange - another hobby-
horse of mine...
Before we move too far off track, the discusion was originally about
notifications... Ie Birdlines vs other systems - rather than record
keeping and atlasing. I consider these to be distinct. On reading
Frank's response the other day, the issue is more about moderation -
WHO rather than HOW. I suspect that if someone else in WA was willing
to assist with moderation, WA would happily use Birdline. That just
leaves SA and ACT.
Paul
Sent from my iPhone
Paul Doyle
can someone please advise the significance of reporting sighting of White
Throated Needletails and Fork-tailed Swifts?
Is this info directed to some particualr person for some particular purpose?
thanks
Paul.
Tony Russell
years.
Tony
David Stowe
Rocks NSW about 4pm on the 5th Jan 2010 flying fairly low in front of
an approaching storm front from the west.
Cheers
Dave
Greg & Val Clancy
strongly support what Peter has said about state government databases. In
addition sending rare or unusual specimens, found beachwashed, roadkilled or
window killed etc., to the Australian Museum (Walter Boles) adds greatly to
the scientific database.
Greg Clancy
Ecologist
Coutts Crossing
NSW
http://clk.atdmt.com/NMN/go/157639755/direct/01/==========www.birding-aus.org
Greg & Val Clancy
Greg Clancy
Ecologist
Coutts Crossing
NSW
Alan Stuart
between the managers of the various databases. Is this a case of empire
building? It certainly is not to the benefit of birds and the conservation
of their habitat!
In NSW, I know many people who send in records for the Birds Australia
database and I also know of people who send them in to the NSW Wildlife
atlas or to the NSW Bird Atlassers database. All three databases are
important. Why is there not a way for it all to come together into the one
place?
In the meantime, the reality is that there is not just a single database of
bird records. I am therefore surprised that consultants for development
applications in NSW are referred to the government's database only, when it
is well known that there are two other important databases. It certainly
doesn't help the birds. Why are not all three databases routinely utilized
when important decisions about bird habitat are being taken? It should be
compulsory that the applicants for a development demonstrate that they have
consulted all three databases.
Alan Stuart
Dave Torr
states tend to look at strange species without feathers as well. There is
however no good reason that I can see why all the interested parties could
not get together and define a system for at least sharing data - of course
work would be required to actually implement such a system and the big issue
of funding comes into play.
I guess that if the majority of "owners" of such databases could be prepared
to cooperate then we could campaign to make sure that all birders use that
system rather than others who had chosen not to be involved. Of course there
are systems - like eBird which was mentioned in an earlier post - that would
probably still fall outside this system, and there is indeed a serious issue
in that "international" birders would probably (I know I would) like to have
all their records in one place so they can do life lists, rather than having
Aussie records in one system and non-Aussie ones in another - a situation of
course complicated by the varying taxonomies used by different international
systems compared to C&B.
As to why developers are not forced to consult all databases - that is a
separate battle for now - but an important reason why databases should be
"shared".
2010/1/7 Alan Stuart <alma...@bigpond.com>
Mick Roderick
If records don't end up there, those assessing the consultants / developers reports may never be aware of threatened species records in an area (and I talk from experience).
Mick
________________________________
From: Alan Stuart <alma...@bigpond.com>
To: ? birding-aus <birdi...@vicnet.net.au>
Sent: Thu, 7 January, 2010 5:58:13 PM
Subject: [Birding-Aus] Bird databases
Alan Stuart
===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
__________________________________________________________________________________
See what's on at the movies in your area. Find out now: http://au.movies.yahoo.com/session-times/