Hi birding-aussers,
I have been away birding for a few days, so have missed much of the
discussion on these subjects, so thought I'd lay out my thoughts.
I see there are three distinct systems that we are discussing:
1. A reporting and notification system for rare and unusual sightings.
This is definitely not a replacement for reporting to BARC or anything like
that - rather a system for notifying similarly interested birders of
significant sightings. We have to be careful to avoid the word "rarity"
because that implies a NATIONAL rarity, and not simply a rare, unusual or
significant sighting.
2. A National Database for recording sightings - typically significant
sightings, or surveys recorded using a systematic approach. This database is
clearly the Birds Australia Atlas project, and so it should be, although
various regional organisations also maintain records in databases or on
websites.
3. Systems for birders to record their sightings. For me this is
Eremaea, for others it could be Birdpedia, eBird, iBird, personal databases,
notebooks, spreadsheets, scraps of paper - anything! I use Eremaea because I
find it the easiest to use.
Further to all of this - I believe there should be ONE system for reporting
sightings of interest. I currently favour the Birdlines because they are
easy to use and have pretty much the right amount of information for this
form of notification. I like the fact that the Birdlines are independent of
Eremaea (even though they are written and developed by the same people) - it
is possible to both report sightings and view sightings without ever having
to register on Eremaea or use Eremaea for your records. In addition, I like
the fact that there are Birdlines for different regions (typically States,
but can be finer than that) and a national Birdline Australia. The Birdlines
are moderated - the one change I would make is to leave it to the discretion
of the moderators to decide which sightings warrant escalation to the
national Birdline (this is such a minor point, that it really doesn't matter
particularly). Finally, the Birdlines are the system that is already in use
across the majority of the states and territories in Australia, so it makes
sense to develop the system that is already the dominant one.
I appreciate that there's some overlap between Birdlines and birding-aus -
however, I consider that Birdlines are single-purpose, just for recording
and notifying sightings of interest, whereas birding-aus is a general (but
hopefully birding-related) discussion forum. The danger of only reporting
sightings to birding-aus is that they may be lost amongst other discussion
threads.
Given that there are systems other than Birdine for recording and notifying
sightings, in my opinion people should be able to continue to use those
systems, but there should be some form of data exchange where notifications
can be pushed to Birdline. Already we have through the use of RSS feeds, the
ability for external systems to read and display the Birdlines (see Simon
Mustoe's www.bird-o.com, for example). It is also important that the
Birdline data is free to use - so that third party (ie. non-Birds Australia)
users can make use of it - including BOCA in their printed newsletters, for
example. The intent here is that there is one central location for reporting
these sightings, and one single source for the supply of this information.
Birders always will use whatever system they want for recording their
personal systems - and it makes no sense to attempt to persuade, cajole or
force anyone to use a different system. A personal recording system is not
the same as a national database - the Birds Australia Atlas. The Atlas is
designed to record sightings performed systematically - ie. with some
rigour. The Atlas is inherently moderated by the Atlas program coordinator
and other experts at Birds Australia. Typically the Atlas gathers
considerably more information about sightings (time, date, exact location,
weather conditions, etc) than personal databases or recording systems.
Rigorous Atlassing has uses beyond simple sighting records, for example
trending species abundance and distribution over time and so on. Since
people will continue to use systems other than the Atlas for their personal
recordings (and so they should), in my opinion, where possible, these other
systems should be able to push sightings to the Atlas. This is currently the
case with Eremaea and probably with other systems also.
As far as I can tell, the only thing that I am suggesting here that is in
any way contentious is that we adopt the Birdlines, nationally as the rare
and unusual reporting and notification system.
Paul Dodd
Docklands, Victoria
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