At 10:41 PM 4/6/98 +1000, Michael Norris wrote:
>But the real issue is the use of the information. Where possible I
>record bird/plant associations which help to make sense of geographical
>bird records. Almost all my group's 30 or so local records of Fuscous
>Honeyeater come from 100 sq metre mini-block - fine but to make sense of
>this you have to know it contained a very large Tree Lucerne... For the
>black swan it was relevant that there was a flat calm and the blue wrens
>movement makes more sense if you know the coastal reserve at that point
>is only about 20m wide.
Hi Michael,
Good point! We will probably need to collect some habitat and land-use
information while we are atlassing. This is one of agreements we have made
with Environment Australia because the bulk of the funding is coming from
the Bushcare program. It is essential to maximise the conservation value of
bird atlas data by collecting such additional information.
The challenge will be devising a simple system for collecting and recording
such information. There are a number of data collection designs that have
been proposed and these will be discussed at the workshop.
I can assure atlassers, though, that whatever system we choose, it will not
be difficult, nor will it take the fun out of atlassing. I'm sure that it
will just require atlassers just ticking appropriate habitat and land-use
category boxes on the back of a bird atlas data sheet.
***********************************************************
Dr Stephen Ambrose
Research Manager
Birds Australia (Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union)
Australian Bird Research Centre
415 Riversdale Road,
Hawthorn East,
VIC 3123.
Tel: +61 3 9882 2622
Fax: +61 3 9882 2677
Email: S.Ambrose <> (at work)
<> (at home)
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