Hi all Since eBird is on the agenda I thought it would be good to understand how it relates to other archives of bird records. I know that eBird, moderated, records are passed to the ALA (Atlas of Living Australia) http://www.ala.org.au/ as are records from other sites such as BowerBird.org.au. How does the Australian Bird Atlas https://birdata.com.au/about_atlas.vm fit in to these arrangements? I’m particularly interested because of my decade+ wish to upload my bird database. Cheers Michael Norris
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Hi Michael, I was just looking in my retained birding emails and came across this which Paul Sullivan, BirdLife Australia’s CEO, sent out in October last year. I’m pasting it in as I think it partially answers your question. I gather that BirdLife are still working on the project. Just to clarify questions about birdata and the Atlas. BirdLife Australia is developing a Bird Conservation Portal that will include: – an upgraded birdata interface and an app for our programs – an Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) site database – coordination of site surveys and volunteer support – HANZAB online (searchable) – Australian Field Ornithology and Emu online – ornithological library resource – State of Australia’s Birds and an Australian Bird Index Birdata is squarely aimed at long term structured monitoring and lots of work has gone into ensuring it will be more user friendly, avoid multiple data entry and provide real time feedback. It will allow local groups to set up their own pages (with maps and tables etc) and moderate data for long term monitoring projects. You will also be able to share data with your eBird list. The portal is a core priority for BirdLife Australia. We want to promote structured site surveys more widely so we can apply robust science to protect birds. Work on the portal is underway but clearly it is an ambitious project that requires ongoing funding. Thanks to everyone who has supported this exciting project so far. The science portal and Eremaea eBird are very complementary – eBird users are skilled citizen scientists and we’d like to more people to participate in our conservation programs. Regarding the issues people have been reporting with Birdata, Andrew Silcocks has provided the following comments: Birdata was created to be the online data entry portal which fed data into the master Atlas database, which was offline. The two are linked so that data can flow between the two databases. Unfortunately the link from the master database to Birdata has been giving up problems, which means that not all of the data are displayed in the statistics and maps. We haven’t had any problems with the master Atlas database, which safely houses all of the data. With the development of the new Bird Conservation Portal, a new Birdata will be completely revamped and will become the master database. At the moment, all of our resources are going into funding the new portal, so the problems with the current/old version of Birdata probably won’t be resolved. Apologies for the inconvenience and confusion this has caused. Rest assured, all of the data in the BirdLife Australia Atlas are safe and being put to good use. I hope that helps a bit. Contacting Andrew Silcocks at National Office might give you more exact information. Sonja
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