The object of the blitz is not, and never
realistically could be, to produce an accurate count of, for example, the Crimson
Rosellas in any grid cell - even if you do a saturation coverage of the grid
cell. What it should show is that there are Crimson Rosellas in the grid cell,
or that there are no Crimson Rosellas in the grid cell. And if there are
Crimsons there, that there are large numbers of them, or only one or two.
Please do not get anxious, folks, and
believe you have to survey every nook and cranny of your nominated grid cell.
It will be wonderful if you can, but is not required. Just tap in, if you can, to
the various habitats in your grid cell. So if you have both lake and mountain,
or bog and dry land, it would be better to do shorter surveys (e.g. 2
ha/20 mins) in each habitat rather than longer in only one. But if longer in
only one habitat is logistically easier, then go for it. It would definitely be
appreciated, particularly for those without a GPS, to describe in some detail
the particular habitat in which they surveyed, if their grid cell is a
particularly varied one.
And PLEASE do not be offended if someone
else stops on their way to see their great-aunt or whatever and does a 2-ha in your
patch. It’s not so much quality control but a fact of life that birds
always disappear when you particularly want them to be there, then miraculously
reappear the moment you have left and someone else arrives.
What I want to be able to show, as a
result of this exercise, is that there are, for example, Crimson Rosellas in n%
of the grid cells surveyed; that they are relatively common in n% of those grid
cells, based on the evidence of the 29-30 Oct 05 blitz; that they are breeding in
n grid cells (and of course potentially many more). While we can possibly guess
the outcome for the Crimsons, I doubt we can for many other species.
Cheers – and as Geoffrey’s
cartoons are exhorting you to do, go out and ENJOY yourselves observing and recording
our birds. The world will not come to an end if you miss one. Though if you are
not sure of the identity of a given little brown job – or big one for
that matter – err on the side of caution and give it a miss. If you have
the time and enthusiasm, write a note, describing it. Barbara
From: Geoffrey Dabb
[
Sent: Tuesday, 25 October 2005
4:48 PM
To:
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] and
some more please
For this weekend I have cells K15, L15 and L16. Clearly I am not
going to cover anything like all these. I am proposing to go for
nominal 'saturation' on L15 (northern extremity of which is near Flinders Way
Red Hill so I'll start (first day), after looking in the backyard, by
driving around the nearby suburbs before starting the main job of walking to
Hume via Callum Brae, Mugga etc), then (second day) perhaps one
500-meterer in K15 on the east side of Isaacs Ridge and maybe a couple of
500-meterers on selected parts of L16.
The saturation approach means that for L15 I'll just finish up with a
global figure of eg 213 Crimson Rosellas whether they were seen in my
backyard, on Mount
Mugga or at the
Narrabundah velodrome.
While I'll try to avoid counting the same birds twice, with overlapping
participants it won't really be possible to avoid double- or
treble-counting. However if anyone else is planning to forage in any of
the 3 cells mentioned I'd appreciate if you'd let me know and we might be able
to have a degree of coordination eg I won't do a 500-meterer where someone's
already done one.
