eBird data help to unveil Australia’s most elusive birds
Australia is home to over 700 native bird species, including more than 370 endemics that are found nowhere else in the world. Every day, hundreds of Australian eBirders go out looking for birds, recording their sightings here on the platform and allowing for their observations to be used by scientists and conservationists to better understand and protect our unique birdlife. Now, in new research published open access in the journal Emu, we have used these data to help unveil Australia’s most elusive birds.
Combining data from both eBird and Birdlife Australia’s Birdata, we looked at more than 40 million citizen science records from all over Australia to ascertain which native Australian birds were the least frequently encountered by citizen scientists. These 40 million records correspond to 3.8 million hours (more than 430 years!) of effort by birders around the country – testament to the determination of twitchers and the fantastic value of citizen science platforms like eBird and Birdata.
We found that many species – about a quarter of the 581 we analysed – are well surveyed across their range and are adequately represented in the eBird and Birdata databases. These include many common and widespread birds like Eastern Rosellas and White-browed Scrubwrens but also a number of rare and threatened species like the Southern Cassowary and Forty-spotted Pardalote.
On the other end of the spectrum, however, we found that about ten percent of Australia’s native birds can be considered “hide and seek” champions – those that are very rarely encountered and recorded by birders despite extensive birdwatching effort across their range. Most of these are cryptic and well known by birders as being very challenging to find! At the very extreme end of the scale are the top ten most elusive species. These ten species are all sighted on less than one in every thousand eBird/Birdata checklists within their ranges (reporting rates of less than 0.1%). If you see any of them, be sure to record your observations!
This tiny parrot used to live in the subtropical rainforests of south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales, but has not been confidently sighted in two decades, and no live photographs of the species exist.
A beautiful “boom-and-bust” bird of arid Australia, this nocturnal raptor survives almost entirely on plagues of the native long-haired rat, but the frequency and size of rodent irruptions has dwindled, and there is thought that the kite is in real trouble.
Once considered the “holy grail” of Australian ornithology, several populations have been uncovered thanks to dedicated scientists learning more about how to find this species and the sharing of knowledge between university academics, Indigenous Ranger groups and non-profit conservation organisations.
This species has taken the Night Parrot’s title as the “holy grail” bird for Australian twitchers. Research by University of Queensland scientists has cast a new light on the buttonquail, which has not been confidently sighted in a century.
This species, despite its extensive range across northern and eastern Australia, is rarely recorded and little is known about the species’ ecology.
A bird of our inland wetlands, records of this this beautiful wader are sporadic and the species went completely unrecorded by citizen scientists during 2022. New crowdfunded research is now working on uncovering the secrets of this elusive and endangered species.
This nocturnal species has declined across much of its range because of habitat destruction via coastal development. Birds can still be found around several of Australia’s cities (Brisbane and Newcastle especially), but records outside of these regions are few and far between.
Recent research has shown this iconic raptor has disappeared from more than a third of its range over the past half century. It now survives in the savanna woodlands of northern Australia, but urgent action is required to safeguard it into the future.
A nocturnal denizen of forests and woodlands across much of Australia, many populations of this beautiful but cryptic owl are at risk of extinction through activities like logging and changed fire regimes.
A secretive species, Black-backed Bitterns typically choose to remain hidden in the reedbeds, but little is known about the population dynamics of the species, and birds are surely more widespread than current records suggest.