I’m sure Julian won’t mind if I add a couple of comments. Julian has done an enormous amount of valuable work.
The last COG Annual Bird Report (ABR) was for year ended 2019, not 2017. The website needs updating.
Birdata was the digital base for the periodic Atlas projects. A decision was taken to continue it to receive Birdlife Australia (BLA) species reporting. It is an ongoing
Atlas, so no need for a further project, as Renée says.
A major development was the entry into the field of eBird, and its popularity for personal recording among so many birdwatchers. In its last years, the ABR took in
eBird data, as well as BLA data. That resulted in a great increase in the number of records to be processed each year. In my view, ‘reporting rates’ need to be considered in light of the changing ways that ‘reports’ are created. Ticking a couple of rosellas
through the office window on your phone is a lot different from a list made on a long walk in the countryside.
I attach some information from the last ABR, and from FAQs on the BLA website. In all this, the GBS, valuable as it is, is best considered as a separate source, as
it has been in the ABRs.
A difference between Birdata and eBird (apart from numbers of participants) are the favoured/most used survey types. Also, the way in which the data is presented,
with eBird assigning the information to designated, sometimes vague sites rather than a precise geographical location. I have recently been seeking advice from Kim about ways of extracting reporting rate information from eBird data, for particular places
and periods.
You will see in the 2020 ABR a record of the last Pallid Cuckoo on 19 April 2019 at Wet Lagoon. This is attributed to observer EbD1. At the time, that was the way
of dealing with the large number of eBird records where the identity of the observer was unknown.
If Pallid Cuckoos are to receive extra attention I might mention that the species is very responsive to playing of the call. Years ago from my front door I gave a distant
PC a few seconds of a call from a tape. It flew in and annoyed the neighbourhood for a couple of hours with its own calling.
From: Canberrabirds <>
On Behalf Of broadcanvas--- via Canberrabirds
Sent: Wednesday, 2 October 2024 2:15 PM
To: 'Philip Veerman' <>;
Subject: Re: [Canberrabirds] Pallid Cuckoo
