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https://theconversation.com/we-analysed-citizen-science-to-find-australias-top-10-most-elusive-birds-216645>
"Australia is one of the greatest places to see birds. We are fortunate to have
more than 800 different bird species across the nation. At least 370 species
are found nowhere else on Earth. They range from the iconic Australian magpie
to the migratory short-tailed shearwater, the golden-shouldered parrot and the
delightful superb fairy-wren.
Every day, thousands of birdwatchers are out spotting birds. Yet despite this
enthusiasm, there’s a lot still to learn. More than 200 species are already
listed as threatened with extinction but others may also be struggling and we
just don’t know it yet.
In our new research, we used citizen science data to rank Australia’s birds in
terms of how well they are known. We looked at how often birdwatchers spot each
species and where they find birds, compared with how often they look, to
determine rates of survey success. This quantifies how “well known” each
species is.
We found a quarter of all Australian bird species can be considered well
surveyed and adequately represented in our sightings databases. Many of these
species have ranges that overlap with the densely populated regions of
Australia. And some, like the southern cassowary and eastern rosella, are well
known to most Australians. At the other end of the spectrum, some birds are
very hard to find. Here’s Australia’s top 10 most elusive birds."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
