Maybe not. I presume that the 100 birds in Tassie would not all be
low scoring species. Perhaps you could have regional variations in
scoring. For example, a Masked Owl in Tassie could be worth more than
a Masked Owl in Victoria.
Tasmanian teams would also have the advantage of being able to do a
combined land and sea twitch - you might pick up many of the available
species in SE Tassie in a few hours and have time to hop on a boat for
half a day to pick up some high scoring species.
I would also point out that TWITCHERS would have plenty of time and
enthusiasm to work out a twitching metric.
On 05/09/2008, at 1:55 PM, Chris Sanderson wrote:
Then there's the question of whether you include a species richness
(total number of birds that occur in an area) component to the
calculation. Is it fair to compare Tasmania where 100 birds is a
great list to North QLD where 200 birds is a great list and 100
birds is almost expected? I know this has been discussed before on
Birding-Aus, so I won't go any further into it. But you are
starting to look at a lot of time and effort to try and get some
fair basis for comparison here.
Regards,
Chris
On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 1:44 PM, L&L Knight
<> wrote:
Indeed. The technical nature of the concept incorporating the
difficulty in finding species would be just the thing to appeal to a
TWITCHER [and would pave the way for a national competition].
It could also open the way for a land and sea [pelagic] entry.
Regards, Laurie.
On 05/09/2008, at 1:34 PM, Chris Sanderson wrote:
If you wanted to get very technical, you could rate birds based on
their
reporting rate (# times seen/number of surveys) modified by range
using the
Birds Australia Atlas. This would give you how regularly they are
seen, but
would account for how much effort was spent searching, and where the
bird
occurs. For example it would do you no good rating a 40-spotted
Pardalote
based on all the surveys in Tasmania, however if you just use the
surveys
within its range you get a better idea of how hard it is to see.
Princess
Parrot would probably have a very high score, because even though
there are
few surveys in their habitat, there are probably far fewer that
actually
have the parrot recorded. I think this would be better than a
simple guess
as to how hard a bird is to see. I does mean that rare birds found
near
tourist hotspots will probably score less, and birders living in
living
where a bird is marginal and very hard to see lose out. But I doubt
any
system is perfect!
Regards,
Chris
On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 1:05 PM, John Tongue <>
wrote:
Ooohh! My aching head!
John Tongue
Ulverstone, Tas
On 05/09/2008, at 12:39 PM, John Penhallurick wrote:
Dear Friends,
One easy way to weight species might be in terms of their ratings by
Birdlife International. Say, 5 for a species rated as CR (critical),
4 for
a
species rated as EN (Endangered), 3 for a species rated as VU
(Vulnerable),
2 for a species rated as NT (Near-Threatened) and 1 for a species
rated as
none of the above.
Of course, this would not relate to the difficulty of finding the
species.
I would rate the Princess Parrot as one of the most difficult birds in
Australia to see, but its rating is only NT. I think the answer
might be
for birders in a country to come up with their own ratings, combining
endangerment with difficulty of finding.
John Penhallurick
-----Original Message-----
From:
On Behalf Of John Tongue
Sent: Friday, 5 September 2008 12:31 PM
To: L&L Knight
Cc: Birding Aus
Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] The Ultimate Twitchathon
Interesting thought, Laurie, but not without its difficulties, I
predict. Forty-spotted Pardalotes would have to score high for me,
but maybe not so for someone living in Hobart, Kingston, or Bruny
Island, for instance. And then, should my night parrot score more or
less than your Paradise Parrot?
Maybe someone can come up with an acceptable list of scores?
(meanwhile, don't forget our Great Tassie Twitch!)
Cheers,
John Tongue
Ulverstone, Tas.
On 05/09/2008, at 10:59 AM, L&L Knight wrote:
John Tongue's Tassie Twitchathon invitation got me thinking of an
alternative to the traditional twitchathon model.
Just as Rogaining is a points variation of orienteering, it should
be possible to have a points version of the twitcherthon. Common-as-
mud species score 1, rarer and harder-to-find species score more.
For example, a White-Throated Grasswren might score 20 in a NT
competition, a Sooty Owl might score 5 in a Vic competition, and a
Princess Parrot might score 50 in a WA comp.
This way, there would be an incentive for people to chase species
they normally wouldn't go after if they are simply trying to see the
greatest number of species.
Regards, Laurie.
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