Aussie Backyard Bird Count data noisy

[Tony Ashton <>]

I'm with Andrew in thought of using such listings to  develop estimates of  error and using others' obvious errors to assist in understanding why so many birders get it so wrong much of  the time, accepting there'll always be super optimists and, worse, cheaters. 

On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 9:46 AM, Elliot Leach <> wrote:

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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