Aussie Backyard Bird Count data noisy

[Elliot Leach <>]

I'm sure the Birdlife crew is going to be keeping an eye on the data coming in Andrew, but I don't envy whoever has to sort through all of these lists!

I agree with you in that it's good news that a wider demographic are trying to contribute to this project - they'll just need a bit of practice :)

elliot

On 20 October 2014 08:17, Andrew Taylor <> wrote:

Browsing Aussie Backyard Bird Count list for inner Sydney at
http://aussiebirdcount.org.au/sightings/ you find a significant fraction
of lists contain obvious mis-identifications.

Most like Barn Swallow, Forty-spotted Pardalote, Black Currawong,
Black-tailed Native-hen & Carnaby's Black-Cockatoo are easy to
understand. And perhaps the reporter of Abbott's Booby from
Newtown was making a political point.  Others IDs are just mysterious
like Black Grasswren.

In one way its good news that a wider demographic has been attracted,
although there is clearly challenges ahead to educate observers &
improve the observations and make the data useful.

The mis-ID could be useful, to estimate observer accuracy, someone
reporting (say) Black Currawong shouldn't be relied to have correctly
ID'ed Little Wattlebird & White-faced Honyeater they've also reported.

Andrew

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