Australia

The use of eBird continues to grow strongly around the World. There has also been a great uptake of eBird in Australia. By mid-2016 there were already 8.3 million observations (more than 44 million individual birds) in eBird for Australia alone (480,000 checklists from 4000 different observers) – yet still more lovers of birds are out there that are yet to discover the joys of eBird!  [Please note a correction in this story: Each combination of species and count on a unique checklist is considered an eBird “observation.” Rather than 44 million observations as previously published, more than 44 million individual birds have been recorded in eBird. Our thanks to Mat Gilfedder for bringing this error to our attention. (15 Jan 17) ]

You as an eBirder can help expand support for eBird, by engaging others in starting to use eBird for themselves – sharing the love so to speak. It provides a useful list of points which you can use to discuss the many benefits of eBird amongst your birding colleagues and friends.

Perhaps consider making a personal goal to introduce one birder a month to the benefits of eBird – to birders, the birding community, and the data that can help the birds and their habitats! Here are some ideas as to how you could do that:

1. Create a list and share it. On your next bird club outing, or when you’re birding with your friends, we encourage you to share your eBird checklist with them. This first checklist might just be enough to get someone hooked on using eBird.
2. Give a presentation on eBird to your local bird club. If you have regular club meetings, why not give a presentation on eBird to your local bird club. eBird provides excellent resources on promoting eBird. We are working on providing some Australia-specific resources, as well.
3. Share this article. Send the link to this article to birding friends so they can peruse the various links and learn about the some of the possibilities that eBird offers–it may just sway them to try it out.
4. Talk about eBird with your birding friends. Field outings are great times for chatting about birding, and provide opportunities for raising awareness of eBird and its many benefits. Use the key talking points below if you’re unsure of where or how to start discussing eBird.

Pacific Golden-Plover, Long Reef Aquatic Reserve, NSW. Photo by Corey Callaghan/Macaulay Library

Key eBird Talking Points and links

Here are some key benefits of eBird, as well as hyperlinks to relevant information:

1. eBirding is personally rewarding! Gone are the days of needing heaps of notebooks to keep track of your bird lists. Now, you can safely and easily store your bird observations all online. Ever wondered when the first time it was that you saw a Crimson Chat? You can easily use your lists on eBird to investigate the first and last time you’ve seen all species. You can even look at weekly, monthly, and yearly summaries of your sightings.
2. eBirding is easy! Submitting your bird lists takes a minimal time investment because the eBird website is well designed and very easy to use. Better yet, if you have a smartphone, you can keep track of your bird sightings while in the field using the eBird app.
3. Contribute to science! The more data that are submitted to eBird, the more useful the eBird database becomes. Scientists are currently using your, and other eBirder’s data to answer a multitude of ecological questions. Studies which use eBird data range from single species questions to broad avian biodiversity questions. Aside from observation data, you can collect breeding information that helps document breeding on a large scale.
4. Plan your outings! Undecided on where to go birding this weekend? Have an upcoming family holiday and want to do some birding with the kids? Where can I go to hopefully find a Pink-eared Duck? eBird can help with all of that. You can explore a region or hotspot, look at bar charts, create personal alerts, and even create target lists of species that you have not seen yet. Submitting more data is a key to making these resources more helpful to birders. Have a specific bird you’re interested in finding? You can look at the species map for specific species and investigate recent sightings.
5. Become a better birder! It’s been scientifically shown that the more you use eBird, the better your ability to detect cryptic and difficult-to-identify species becomes. In addition, current research and identification tips are commonly posted on this website such as the recent article on Australian Robins. Furthermore, you can explore a plethora of photographs and audio to help with bird identification. You can even submit your own photographs and audio in your checklists.
6. You can share lists with others! On a field outing with your local bird club, one person can ‘keep the list’ for the group, with everyone contributing the birds they see. At the end of the outing, it’s easy to share the list with everyone who has an eBird account. Sharing allows everyone to know what birds were seen as a group. Individuals can then remove birds that they didn’t see from ‘their version’ of the group list, without it affecting the original group list.
7. eBird encourages ethical birding! Remember that eBird provides guidelines for reporting sensitive species and ethical birding. Because we’re conscientious birders, we can remind ourselves and others of why and how we always want to act in ways that promote the welfare of birds and their environment.

Next time you see another birder out in the field, be bold and share your enthusiasm for eBird. Let’s spread the word!

~Contributed by Corey Callaghan

Why do you eBird?  Share the love by tagging @eremaeaeBird on twitter, using the #ebird tag and pinging @ultimatemegs with your #ebirdlove

Please note the following correction in this article:

An eBird observation is a record of a species in space and time. A checklist can have observations of many species and individual birds (e.g., 21 Australasian Swamphen, 10 Red-backed Fairywren, 1 Pheasant Coucal). Each combination of species and count on a unique checklist is considered an “observation.” This article previously noted that 44 million observations had been recorded in Australia by mid-2016. The correct statement is that more than 44 million individual birds (8.3 million observations) had been recorded. Our thanks to Mat Gilfedder for bringing this error to our attention. (15 January 2017)