OK birders; here's some flimsy data and idle speculation for you to
ponder over dinner.
As part of some database maintenance today, I assembled some stats on
what I have in there. Arising from that, I concocted a list of the
birds I record most frequently - and conversely those I record least
frequently.
Some background ....
I keep a BirdInfo database into which goes almost every fauna
observation I make. From 1978 to about 1988, the records in my
notebooks are mostly but not all in the database. Since about 1989 -
2003, just about everything goes in there. The kinds of jaunts that
generate these records include recreational birding, atlassing,
professional surveys/consulting work. I record all vertebrate taxa and
some invertebrates (butterflies), but let's just talk birds for now.
I confined my analysis for this trivial aside to my home state of
Victoria. Since starting in 1978, I've managed to squeeze 40,760
Victorian bird records from 1,626 surveys of 451 sites and 387 species.
This is obviously incomplete (probably another 35-40 species in
non-survey notes), but disregard that for now, and see what conclusions
you can draw about where my birding has generally been (ie. can you
detect my dry grassy woodland bias!!!???), based on the 50 most often
recorded and 68 least recorded species (recorded <=0.2% of surveys).
50 most often recorded (% = number of surveys in which this species was
recorded)
64.8 White-plumed Honeyeater
60.6 Australian Magpie
59.5 Grey Shrike-thrush
55.6 Superb Fairy-wren
48.8 Striated Pardalote
47.8 Sulphur-crested Cockatoo
45.1 Willie Wagtail
44.0 Galah
42.8 White-throated Treecreeper
42.4 Australian Raven
38.9 Red Wattlebird
38.3 Grey Fantail
38.0 Welcome Swallow
36.2 Brown Treecreeper
35.1 Laughing Kookaburra
34.3 Spotted Pardalote
32.1 Little Raven
31.1 Magpie-lark
29.5 Eastern Rosella
28.7 Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike
26.3 Brown Thornbill
26.1 Common Starling
25.3 White-winged Chough
25.0 Eastern Yellow Robin
24.6 Red-rumped Parrot
24.5 Eastern Shrike-tit
24.2 Common Blackbird
23.7 New Holland Honeyeater
23.2 Crimson Rosella
23.2 Yellow Rosella
23.0 Rufous Whistler
22.9 White-browed Scrubwren
22.9 Weebill
21.8 Brown-headed Honeyeater
21.6 Dusky Woodswallow
21.5 Golden Whistler
20.8 Yellow-faced Honeyeater
20.8 Silvereye
20.6 White-naped Honeyeater
20.5 Red-browed Finch
20.4 Jacky Winter
19.9 Buff-rumped Thornbill
19.7 House Sparrow
19.5 Yellow-rumped Thornbill
18.3 Striated Thornbill
17.7 Mistletoebird
17.6 Restless Flycatcher
16.8 White-eared Honeyeater
15.1 Common Bronzewing
15.1 White-faced Heron
Bottom 68 (<= 0.2% of surveys - rarities, vagrants, birds from places I
don't much go, etc.)
0.2 Whimbrel
0.2 Common Sandpiper
0.2 Grey-tailed Tattler
0.2 Sanderling
0.2 Bush Stone-curlew
0.2 Pomarine Jaeger
0.2 Arctic Jaeger
0.2 Gull-billed Tern
0.2 Grey-fronted Honeyeater
0.2 Ground Cuckoo-shrike
0.2 Common Diving-Petrel
0.2 Kerguelen Petrel
0.2 Blue Petrel
0.2 Hutton's Shearwater
0.2 Wood Sandpiper
0.2 Terek Sandpiper
0.2 Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo
0.2 Regent Parrot
0.2 Turquoise Parrot
0.2 Rufous Fieldwren
0.2 Regent Honeyeater
0.2 Pied Honeyeater
0.1 King Quail
0.1 Southern Giant-Petrel
0.1 Cape Petrel
0.1 Buller's Shearwater
0.1 White-faced Storm-Petrel
0.1 Square-tailed Kite
0.1 Little Button-quail
0.1 Long-toed Stint
0.1 Ruff
0.1 Oriental Pratincole
0.1 Australian Pratincole
0.1 White-fronted Tern
0.1 Wonga Pigeon
0.1 Red-lored Whistler
0.1 Black-faced Monarch
0.1 Red-whiskered Bulbul
0.1 Plumed Whistling-Duck
0.1 Northern Shoveler
0.1 Garganey
0.1 Southern Fulmar
0.1 Gould's Petrel
0.1 Antarctic Prion
0.1 Slender-billed Prion
0.1 Fulmar Prion
0.1 Sooty Shearwater
0.1 Wandering Albatross
0.1 Royal Albatross
0.1 Grey-headed Albatross
0.1 Sooty Albatross
0.1 Wilson's Storm-Petrel
0.1 Australian Little Bittern
0.1 Plains-wanderer
0.1 Little Curlew
0.1 Little Stint
0.1 Broad-billed Sandpiper
0.1 Red-necked Phalarope
0.1 Painted Snipe
0.1 Ringed Plover
0.1 Arctic Tern
0.1 Bar-shouldered Dove
0.1 Scaly-breasted Lorikeet
0.1 Scarlet-chested Parrot
0.1 Mallee Whipbird
0.1 Little Woodswallow
0.1 Spotted Bowerbird
0.1 Double-barred Finch
And can anyone else be bothered doing likewise with their home state
observations?
Yours, curiously
Lawrie
--
=================================
Lawrie Conole
Senior Ecologist
Ornithology & Terrestrial Ecology
Ecology Australia Pty. Ltd.
Flora and Fauna Consultants
88B Station Street
FAIRFIELD VIC 3078 Australia
E-mail:
Internet: http://www.ecologyaustralia.com.au/
Ph: (03) 9489 4191; Mob: (0419) 588 993
Fax: (03) 9481 7679
ABN 83 006 757 142
NOTE: This message may contain privileged and/or confidential information
intended for addressees only. Please do not copy or forward without permission.
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message
"unsubscribe birding-aus" (no quotes, no Subject line)
to
|
