2016 bird monitoring – painting a picture of our woodland birds
Posted on 19 December, 2016 by Tanya Loos
People most often ask – how are the birds doing? Are there more birds, and more ‘good’ birds as we have revegetated the landscape? This is a really valid question, and the reason why we have put so much time and energy into our monitoring programs. It is a difficult question to answer. But we can say that we now know more than EVER before about the distribution of woodland birds across the landscape. Monitoring began in 2010, and has combined both an in-house program (click here) and our citizen science program (click here).
I am just about to export some 8,473 bird records to BirdLife Australia, as part of our data-sharing agreement. These records are from the period May 27, 2015 to November 11, 2016. This means the BirdLife Australia Bird Atlas is about to get a large injection of information from this part of the world – including 406 surveys carried out by myself, and 91 surveys from our Group Sites and landholder citizen science program. Well done team! This data gives us valuable information on how our woodland birds are faring across the landscape – including their distribution, and a beginning of an idea about their population sizes.
In this fascinating map above, we can see the distribution of the Brown Treecreeper. The white circles show where surveys have been carried out and the Treecreepers were not recorded. The green coloured dots show that the Brown Treecreepers have been recorded there. The number next to the dot shows not the number of individual birds but occurrences – so a number two means that any number of Brown Treecreepers have been recorded on two separate occasions. The large ovals are the priority habitat zones as identified in our Ten Year Woodland Bird Action Plan.
For more exciting information from our recent monitoring results – see our updated website page here.
These maps have been generated for each member of the feathered five – and Cara Byrt, our database expert extraordinaire has just re-jigged the database so that we can create similar maps for any bird species! If you would like a map similar to the map above of your favourite bird species – email Tanya Loos and she will be happy to oblige!
On a final note: whether you enjoy birdwatching in a group, on your own, or from the comfort of your own property – there is a place for you in our bird program! Please do not hesitate to get in touch either by email (tanya@connectingcountry.org.au) or calling the Connecting Country Office on 5472 1594.
Owlet-nightjar paparazzi at the Christmas break-up. A lot of fun!
Hi Tanya.
I’d love to do a bit of bird watching and observing on our property. Have to say, I’m not very good at it, but I can learn!
cheers,
Jill Teschendorff