It would be good in some ways to see the current list of WA sightings on
Eremea. The mega sightings are already posted. I was approached to
moderate it, but I don't have time. I have often fallen behind on the
current list. There are a few reasons for not simply switching to Eremea.
Birds Australia WA prints a quarterly newsletter WA Bird Notes. This
includes a summary of the sightings. However, the sightings for the March
WABN need to be summarised by the end of January, so WABN is at least a
month behind if you are looking for rarities to go looking
for. Historically, there was a written list kept in the office and you
could call the office (during office hours) and ask for the
sightings. There was also a separate phone number for the sightings (now
the BAWA fax number). Again, this wasn't very satisfactory for rapid
distribution of information.
Birding-aus helped greatly for the main rarities, except that few WA
birders subscribed to birding-aus. This has changed, but it is still under
utilised by WA birders.
So in 2001, I proposed that BAWA should expand the web site that Allan
Burbidge had created on his web site. The main reasons were for the
sightings, and also to put the series of WA bird guide brochures online. I
was appointed the web site administrator. I also created an email
for people to report the sightings. That way when
I pass the role on to someone else, the email would not change. One
advantage was that this allows sightings other than those unusual enough
for WABN to be reported.
I am away many times during the year, so it was never meant to be a site to
get information about the rarities. It simply reports the date, observer,
species and location. Rarities should be reported to birding-aus and the
birdswa email list. The WA Sightings (and the Eremea list) are moderated
and so there will always be a delay. Emails to birding-aus and birdswa can
also include full details about directions, behaviour, etc.
I am still the 'convenor' of the WA Rarities Committee. Basically this
means that at the end of each quarter (end of January, April, July and
October) I select out the sightings that are worthy of inclusion in the
next WABN, and I email this list to the other people on the rarities
committee. For the major rarities, I have usually forwarded them the
information that I received at the time. The WA Sightings are split into
four regions (Metropolitan, South West, Arid and Broome) plus WABN also
includes Ashmore, Cocos and Christmas. Eremea doesn't allow me to break up
WA (it could do it but it probably wouldn't make sense). To save me time,
I highlight the records that will probably be included in WABN in red (bold
for the major rarities and bold capitals for the mega rarities).
I archive the sightings once I have done the summary, and start a new page
(with links to the archive).
Late in 2008, the national office of BA agreed to host the BAWA web site,
and Jen Sutfin did a sensational job within the limits that the software
provided. But this didn't enable the sightings to be taken over, so I
continue to maintain this (on the BAWA development domain birdswa.org.au)
and the national web site links to it. You should not assume that the
sightings will continue to be on that domain. You should link to
birdsaustralia.com.au/wa and then click on the WA Sightings link on the right.
I proposed to Jen that BA create an Australian Sightings database with the
following fields :
1. State (e.g. WA, Ashmore, Cocos, Christmas, ...)
2. Region (e.g. for WA would be Metropolitan, South West, Arid, Kimberley)
3. Date (e.g. a simple date 05/01/2010, or a date range, or something like
early 12/2009 - all are possible for this field)
4. Observer (or observers)
5. Species (or list of species - but could be free text to allow some
comments such as 1st record, or photographs, or ... But sometimes you need
to write snipe sp. or swiftlet sp. to complicate matters)
6. Rarity Level (say 1 to 5 with 1 being mega rarity - this would allow the
entry to be displayed differently. e.g. 1 would be bold capital red, 2 is
bold red, 3 red, 4 other, 5 unconfirmed / possible. Note that this is
tricky as each species in the list needs a level)
7. Date Reported (this allows the archiving ability - note that I do get
records that are very old, so the date of observation cannot be used for
this - the user would then also have the option of displaying in date of
sighting order or in date reported order with most recent first)
This would allow me to extract the WA records reported since my last
summary for WABN for rarity levels 1 to 3, sorted within region by
taxonomic order and date of sighting. This structure could be used by
every state.
A secondary functionality was to create an email list where people could
register to receive sightings. They would check a box for each of the
states, regions and levels they wish to be notified for.
About this time, Eremea was created. Jen couldn't do the above with the
current software anyway, so this hasn't progressed, and is probably
unlikely to progress.
I know that some people are upset that the sightings are moderated. They
need to be moderated so that any queries can be handled. Some people get
upset if you question a sighting, but they need to understand that this
must be part of the process. This is very tricky. The hardest I have had
to deal with is Ian May's report of large numbers of Forest Kingfishers on
Weaber Plains at Kununurra. This would be the first official record for
WA!! There have been a few previous unofficial reports (including one by
me at the south end of Lake Argyle but I also failed to document it). The
committee decided that Ian's report was not enough to be included in WABN
(and hence would be reported as a 5 above), but I note that it has been
reported in other magazines. Black Kites in the south west has been
another contentious issue.
The current situation is not perfect. I have reached the point where I
would be happy to pass the role of WA Sightings on to someone. The current
method requires them to know how to create and edit a web page (I use Front
Page but any program would be suitable, and also to be able to judge each
sighting. It is very difficult to find someone with these abilities and
with the time. I have a lot of birding planned this year, which means that
I will be away much more, and that the WA Sightings will fall behind more
than usual. This could come to a head at the end of October when I will
probably be away when the December summary needs to be done.
In summary, for WA sightings :
1. Use the birding-aus (and birdswa) email lists to report sightings,
especially mega sightings.
2. Please copy in for rare or unusual WA sightings.
3. You are welcome to also post it on Eremea.
4. To look at the sightings, use birdsaustralia.com.au/wa as your link and
then click on WA Sightings (If you link directly to the WA Sightings, then
it will fail to work sometime in the future when things are improved)
This email wasn't intended to be this long!! But as you see, even something
seemingly simple as reporting sightings can have complexities and other
issues that are involved.
_________________________________________________________________
Frank O'Connor Birding WA http://birdingwa.iinet.net.au
Phone : (08) 9386 5694 Email :
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