>There was discussion by the Whacked Out Woodswallows while driving back
>from Newcastle (we did 1600 km together - my other team
Hi David
I think my team (the Tang Tang Tintacks, or White-fronted Chat squared) did
about 600-700km for our 209 species in Victoria. Maybe birds/km would sort
out a few of these expeditionary teams! - that's about 0.3 birds/km for us and
0.1 birds/km for you.
>Firstly, a question. Other than NSW and Victoria are there any regular
>twitchathon participants in the other states? I thought there was in
>Queensland last year, at least.
It seems to have died in South Australia and Tasmania. Western Australia has
been quiet for a few years, and we haven't heard any reports from Queensland
this year. Qld has it's own QOSI Twitchathon as well though, at a slightly
different time if I recall correctly.
NSW seems well and truly alive and vigorous, and the Victorian event certainly
had a major revival this year.
>The greatest problem in making it a national race is how do you compare
>totals in the different states. It could be argued that teams in far
>north Queensland have an advantage because of the greater number of
>species available in a relatively small area. I vaguely recall there
>being discussion about this in the past. It was decided, by my team, that
>one possible way around this is to average the winning score of past
>twitchathons in each state. The national winner is the team that exceeds
>their state average by the greatest percentage point.
This handicapping discussion has been had a few times, but I'm not aware of
anything coming from it. I thought that the North Queensland group of BA was
supporting a national trophy last year, but haven't heard any more about that
either.
I think averaging the previous "x" winning scores in each state or region is
probably a reasonable way of comparing widely separated geographic locations
(x = how ever long the records go back). I think this was the method settled
on for the national trophy.
It's interesting though that the winning totals over recent years in Victoria,
NSW and North Queensland have not been wildly different. A total of 205-225
in a 24-hour Twitchathon in eastern Australia seems to be a winning one,
regardless
of where along the line of latitude you find yourself.
Lawrie Conole
Head Tintack
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
L A W R I E C O N O L E
2/37 Myrnong Crescent, Ascot Vale, Victoria 3032 AUSTRALIA.
Phone AH (03) 9370 3928; Mobile (0419) 588 993.
E-mail:
Senior Zoologist
Ecology Australia Pty Ltd
88b Station Street, Fairfield, Victoria 3078 AUSTRALIA
Phone BH (03) 9489 4191
E-mail:
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