Dave et al,
Surely the solution is to allow people to record their sightings using
any system they like but to have some form of data interchange
standard - especially to the BA Atlas. Data exchange - another hobby-
horse of mine...
Before we move too far off track, the discusion was originally about
notifications... Ie Birdlines vs other systems - rather than record
keeping and atlasing. I consider these to be distinct. On reading
Frank's response the other day, the issue is more about moderation -
WHO rather than HOW. I suspect that if someone else in WA was willing
to assist with moderation, WA would happily use Birdline. That just
leaves SA and ACT.
Paul
Sent from my iPhone
On 05/01/2010, at 8:02 PM, Dave Torr <> wrote:
I am sure that it will be able to do everything - but unless a
significant
proportion of birders can be persuaded to move from the systems they
use now
it is likely to end up as just another place that has a few % of
records.
Obviously in the long run people will use whatever systems work the
best and
neither I nor BA nor BOCA nor anyone else on this list can tell
people what
to use, and there will always be new ones coming along, but the more
fragmented the collection of data becomes the less useful it is both
for
normal birders and for scientists. I personally would much rather
have one
place to look to find data than many places, especially as tools
like Google
cannot extract data readily from such databases (yet!). To a certain
extent
bird-o and the new BOCA website will solve some of these problems,
but the
more systems that are in use the harder it becomes for anyone to get
an
overall picture of what is happening.
2010/1/5 Nigel Jackett <>
Hi Dave,
eBird will be able to do almost everything you desire, and is
expected to
cover Australia this year. Also, it is already apparently the largest
wildlife database in existence, and much of the data contributed by
birders
is used by scientists for research and conservation purposes. It
also it
fantastic for keeping lists. You may want to check out these
examples to see
for yourself what it's capable of:
http://www.ebird.org - Homepage of eBird
http://www.ebird.org/content/newzealand - New Zealand eBird
example, for
some reasaon it's already made it there and not here!
Cheers,
Nigel
On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 1:12 PM, Dave Torr <>
wrote:
OK - a stab at what I would like to see - but as I don't run any
of the
systems then it is not up to me!
A national birding discussion group - Birding-Aus is clearly the
only real
candidate for that
Both national and state birdlines - here is where we get into
middy waters
as Eremaea does a good job in the 6 or so state/areas that it
covers but
is
lacking in some places. But the Eremaea national birdline seems to
get
little traffic, as people report national rarities more on Birding-
Aus.
Would be nice in my humble opinion if all rare sightings went to
Eremaea
rather then Birding-Aus and the relevant moderators decided
whether to
escalate to the National one.
And finally a recording database of which the Atlas is the only
serious
contender - again I would love it if Eremaea and Birdpedia moved
out of
this
area - but I do think there needs to be more consensus as to what is
really
needed in this area. As I said - subspecies to me are essential.
Many
birders (like myself) want to keep all of their lists in one place
and
whilst the Atlas is great for formal surveys it is less good for
"birds I
saw whilst driving from Melbourne to Canberra" - which are still
valid for
my personal year list but not much good for scientists.
Finally I wonder about the long term future of any site that is
maintained
and run essentially by one person. In the short history of the
internet
many
websites have come and gone. It is I guess my experience that
individuals
are much more likely to have good ideas and implement them quickly
than
organisations, but that organisations (such as BA and BOCA) are
much more
likely to be around in some form or other running whatever passes
for a
website in 50 years time than the excellent sites that today's
dedicated
individuals run. So how does one harness the dedication and drive
of the
few
dedicated enthusiasts behind Birding-Aus, Eremaea, Birdpedia and
others
whilst at the same time trying to ensure that their data will be
still
available to researchers in 50 years time when unfortunately some
of the
individuals behind these sites may no longer be as active as they
are now!
2010/1/5 michael norris <>
Hi Dave
But what are the objectives of all these reporting/recording
systems?
It would be great if you and other people managing them were to
set up a
private blog or similar to work for greater clarity on what each
of you
is
trying to achieve.
For instance, Birdline Vic (on Eremaea) is ".....a site for the
reporting
of rare or unusual birds outside their normal range, unusually
high or
low
numbers, early or late arrivals or departures for migrant species
and
interesting behaviour or unusual habitat usage.'
So it's like the lists (also moderated and also unauthenticated)
printed
in
the Bird Observer.
Quite different from the Atlas which, to my mind, should be
regarded as
the
authoritative archive for monitoring bird distributions (and
sites). It
also needs to be resourced properly (pay per view?), in the same
way
that
Simon Mustoe proposes an "instant" rarity reporting system would
need to
be
funded.
Michael Norris
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