Thanks for the summary Frank - I have an interest as webmaster of BOCA and
we will soon launch an updated site (development site at boca.net.au - this
will not be the final URL) which will include many of the birdline feeds.
I would add two things to your summary - firstly that if birders are going
to post reports on Eremaea (rather than to a Birdline of some sort) it would
be much more useful if they were complete lists of sightings they made
rather than just the highlights - checking Eremaea for the Western treatment
Plant at Werribee reveals that the apparent chances of seeing birds such as
Black Swan (which I would rate as 99+%) are rarely much above 50% -
presumably because many people submit a record for the Long-toed Stint they
saw but not the rest of the birds.
Secondly - and this is an issue for Eremaea, Birdpedia and the Atlas (and
any other systems out there!) their usefulness to future generations I am
sure would be enhanced if they allowed for the inclusion of subspecies. I
realise that there is no "official" ssp list in Aus but given the rapid
changes in taxonomy I am sure there will be instances in the future when we
will regret that we did not record a ssp as we do not now know what "new"
species was seen.
2010/1/5 Frank O'Connor <>
>
> 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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> birding-aus.blogspot.com
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