There would be some advantages in keeping a personal list. In a previous message I said I couldn’t remember seeing a Red-backed kingfisher ‘in the ACT’. Of course I have. Over a couple of seasons Roger Curnow drew attention to that breeding pair on Ginninderra Creek - seen by many observers at the time. The point is, why just write down birds in the ACT? Why not write down EVERY bird you see? Some people do, of course, and are no doubt better equipped to speak with authority on what species are out there – at least where they’ve been personally. But then, if EVERYONE wrote down EVERY bird they saw and then it was all put together …. but hang on, isn’t that where the world is heading anyway? It’s the mammals I feel sorry for.
From: Philip Veerman [
Sent: Saturday, 12 January 2013 11:07 PM
To: 'COG line'
Subject: [canberrabirds] Big Year 2012 and counts of ACT birds
David McDonald wrote that Steve Wilson's Annotated Checklist has been at COG's website for quite a few years - see under 'lists'. But the filename has been changed, thanks for alerting me to that, it is now http://www.canberrabirds.org.au/CheckList.htm . and 'A site at which birders who have observed 150 or more wild bird species in the Australian Capital Territory may have their totals listed.' It also gives inclusion rules.
To which I note that file is a pdf. I wonder, or more to the point request, does this list of bird species exist as an Excel file for example, so that someone can just have a column for yes and put a 1 in it to have the system add up the ones. (Computers are good at that). Otherwise someone needs to manually count, which is hard work. I am sort of curious what would be on my ACT list, as I have never considered that.
