Abstract: |
This project aims to foster a skilled body of community members across the Eyre Peninsula, South Australia, capable of carrying out bird surveys to facilitate long-term monitoring programs.
Existing bird identification expertise across the region is limited. Typically members of the public gain experience in bird identification slowly over many years, often through self-education.
A program to assist people in identification of shorebirds is run by Birdlife Australia, but it is generally relevant only to birding enthusiasts who have already achieved a relatively high level of knowledge over many years. Typically the majority of skilled bird watchers represent an aging demographic well-into their 60s and 70s.
To enable implementation of a scientifically-valid, cost-effective, long-term, broad-scale monitoring program able to assess mechanisms of biodiversity change across the Eyre Peninsula, there is a need to develop a new generation of skilled bird-observers across the region. This can be achieved by training community members to the appropriate level, and helping them to carry out surveys within a scientifically-valid monitoring program.
Community members undertake bird identification training (available online) which provides them with the skills and knowledge to undertake bird surveys across Eyre Peninsula. Sightings are entered into an online data portal (www.epbirds.com.au) and the data stored in the Atlas of Living Australia.
This dataset contains the opportunistic records collected as part of this project. Other components include the 500-metre-radius survey (Project 994) and 2HA surveys (Project 995).
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