The way I see it is that it is no different to “the neighbour’s” budgie getting out of its cage, you know exactly where it came from or how it got there. Therefore common sense tells you not to record it. If however Philip saw the bird as a completely free bird and did not know how it got there then by all means record it. Simple really!
Mark
From: Philip Veerman [
Sent: Sunday, 11 March 2012 2:57 PM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] Bird recording conundrum
On 25-2-2012 I wrote this question. It is curious to me that no one has responded. I am still 50/50 split as to whether this should go on the record sheet or not. Yes I know it hardly matters either way but it is odd to not elicit any guidelines or opinions (even humorous ones).
-----Original Message-----From: Philip Veerman [ Sent: Saturday, 25 February 2012 4:49 PM To: Subject: Kambah Pool miscellany
I decided to go on a extended journey from Kambah home to Kambah Pool today during the mid day moderate heat.
As I arrived and was getting my things together, a man drove to the edge of the car park, got out of his car with a shoe box, knelt down and opened the shoe box and I saw something flutter out. I expect he did not notice I was inside my car and saw what he did. I approached him and said "what was that?" He said he caught a bird in his strawberry patch and decided he should take it out to the bush to release it. I asked what bird and he said "I dunno, a brown bird". My first likely thoughts on that basis were a myna or female blackbird. When he pointed it out to me, sitting rather dazed low in a nearby tree, I see and tell him it is a young Red Wattlebird. Given that it may still be dependent, I said it may not survive but at least it is a common native bird and probably no harm. He got in his car and drove off to wherever.
Here is a question for the database team: Does that constitute a Red Wattlebird to go on the datasheet? If I had not seen how it got there I would not have known. I did not observe any other Red Wattlebird(s) there today.
