Dear COG members and friends of birds
After 20 years as Manager of COG Databases, my resignation from the position has been accepted by the Committee. I wish to thank everyone who has contributed their time, effort and interest to record bird sightings in our area of interest,
and would encourage you all to keep up the good work.
The COG Atlas Online Database is reaching the end of its working life, and I am concerned that we will no longer be able to keep it operational. It is an old clunker, but has been surprisingly robust, keeping going with absolutely
minimal maintenance.
So, two things:
1. First if you are still using COG Atlas Online, please get all your data entries up to date ASAP, particularly sightings for the last bird year as the Annual Bird Report
will require this data soon.
2. Secondly, if that is your main data entry point, I suggest you seek elsewhere for the near future. Personally, most of my sightings I report through eBird Australia, and
for the Blitz I may revert to paper forms.
No final decision has yet been made to cease COG Atlas Online, but I would advise people to avoid this system, since it is entirely possible it may cease to function without notice.
There is a system for incidental reports on the COG Website, but this is very labour intensive for me to extract and organise the data, so I suggest that persons only use this occasionally to report exciting sightings, but not use it as
a means of regular reporting.
If there are people who have an interest and skills in the management of small databases I invite them to contact me with a view to assisting in this vital work.
Warm regards to all
Paul Fennell
Editor Annual Bird Report
exManager COG Databases
0262541804
0407105460
