5-45 AM Saturday morning, 1 August, Eltham, outer north-east suburb of
Melbourne. Lying in bed trying to determine how long I can stay there
before I run a chance of missing my flight to sunny, and relatively warmer,
Sydney.
The first bird recorded in the all new, fully modernised, Birds Australia
ATLAS was Laughing Kookaburra, followed by Australian Magpie. I was
somewhat relieved that my first two birds were not Blackbird and Common
Myna as I expected (these were 3 and 4 respectively).
What I was a little disappointed about, however, was the lack of fanfare
that heralded in this very important project. Also the lack of very basic
things such as instruction manuals and record sheets. I appreciate that
staff of Birds Australia have been working overtime to get the Atlas up and
running, but I think that a great opportunity has been missed. I think
large numbers of birdwatchers would have loved to have got out on the
weekend and done some atlassing (particularly in Sydney where the weather
was glorious), a first for the many who missed Atlas I. Perhaps a more
realistic starting date should have been set.
With luck, atlassers will have record sheets this week in time for the
national Regent Honeyeater/Swift Parrot survey this weekend, 8-9 August. I
am anticipating about 100 people taking part in this survey and I hope they
will all be completing atlas sheets as well as our survey forms.
David Geering
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