birding-aus

Could Australia top the Great Backyard Bird Count?

To: "Philip Veerman" <>
Subject: Could Australia top the Great Backyard Bird Count?
From: Laurie Knight <>
Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2014 17:29:48 +1000
Simple Philip

If you visit the website you will see that the count is not limited to backyards. The name is a misnomer.

Regards, Laurie.

On 16/02/2014, at 5:27 PM, Philip Veerman wrote:

I am the author of I believe the most comprehensive account of an urban bird population study in Australia, for Canberra (that also lists literature available at the time from other cities), so that is a basis for writing something. I am a little lost at the suggestion here of including pelagic
species in a comparison to a Great Backyard Bird Count.

Philip


-----Original Message-----
From: Birding-Aus On Behalf Of
Laurie Knight
Sent: Sunday, 16 February 2014 3:40 PM
To: 
Subject: [Birding-Aus] Could Australia top the Great Backyard Bird Count?


I've just had a look at the national totals of species observed -
http://ebird.org/ebird/gbbc/places?yr=all&m=

The United States has the most species - 578 on the back of 34,000 lists India is second with 434 species from just 893 lists Australia is third with
430 species from only 396 lists.

If we can get lists in from around Australia (including the external
territories) and from any pelagic trips run this weekend, it is quite
conceivable that Australia could top the species count.  Now that
would be something.

Regards, Laurie.


On 16/02/2014, at 2:21 PM, Laurie Knight wrote:

So far about 31,000 checklists have been submitted today.  (I put in
two for my neighbourhood).  If you look at the map
(http://ebird.org/ebird/gbbc/livesubs?siteLanguage=en
), you can see the checklists being submitted in real time -
obviously a lot coming in from the USA.  There is fairly good
coverage of NZ and southern India, but outback Aus observations are
few and far between.

The number of species reported is currently 2713, so they are a fair
bit behind last year's total of 4258 species.  I suspect there are
over 200 Australian species that could easily be added to the list
by people who have been out this weekend (any pelagics?)

The one question I have is why did the Audubon society choose
February (the depths of winter in the northern hemisphere) for its
annual birdcount?  Perhaps they were hoping for strong participation
rates from southern observers?

Regards, Laurie.


On 13/02/2014, at 6:19 PM, Laurie Knight wrote:

The Great Backyard Bird Count is Feb. 14-17.  According to the
following article, birders in 100 countries will be participating ...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/02/11/global-backyard-bird-co
unt/5233847/

The deal is that participants do 15+ min bird list for a geographic
location and load their sightings on  www.birdcount.org

Regards, Laurie.



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