New Zealand Bird Atlas 2019-2024

[Patrick Crowe]

Hi Everyone,

We hope everyone is well, and of course practising physical distancing taking the necessary precautions to stop the spread of COVID-19. Birding is a fantastic way to still get out in nature and provides a welcome distraction from everything that is going on.

If you are already participating with the Atlas then we’d like to take this opportunity to thank you and please keep up the awesome work. Your efforts aren’t going unnoticed! For anyone who hasn’t heard of the NZ Bird Atlas, or hasn’t yet felt engaged with it we’d love you to be part of the community. The scheme runs for the next 5 years (1st June 2019 - 1st June 2024), so there’s plenty of time left to get stuck in!

We just wanted to provide a summary of key guidelines to remember when submitting data to the NZ Bird Atlas. We’re actively trying to spread awareness of these guidelines as much as we can, and appreciate you sharing them round and discussing them with other ‘Atlasers’. More information can be found here https://ebird.org/atlasnz/about/atlas-essentials

In a nutshell the aim for every ‘Atlaser’ is to try detect every possible species within each grid square over each of the four seasons.

When submitting checklists, please ensure they are:

• Complete
- This means listing everything you were able to identify by sight and sound, without intentionally leaving anything out such as introduced species.
- Where possible please try turn an incomplete into a complete checklist by simply listing everything else present
• Giving accurate abundances
- Avoid using X’s next to species and instead give an accurate count (we don’t know if there were 1, 2, 5, 10, 100, 1000 or even more!)
• No less than 5 minutes, no more than an hour or two
• Split into roughly 1km sections
- This reduces likelihood of accidentally crossing major habitat types or grid square boundaries.
- A 5km birding walk can easily be split into five 1 km sections.
• Submitted to the NZ Bird Atlas portal
- Ensure NZ Bird Atlas is selected as your portal on the app
- Submit online records to the NZ Bird Atlas eBird portal https://ebird.org/atlasnz/home
*** This is important as it allows the Effort Map (https://ebird.org/atlasnz/effortmap) to be updated in real time. We can then see what squares are in need of more data and target our efforts.
- If you have been submitting your checklists to the global eBird or NZ eBird portal, you can go back and change the portal on them without having to delete and resubmit. More information here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgPuI1fSxjw
• Submitted to one Grid Square
- All of your Atlas lists need to include birds from only one square, try not to cross grid square boundaries during travelling checklists.

We want everyone to have as much fun as possible with this Atlas scheme and so there is still a huge amount of freedom in how you survey. However ultimately being a national citizen science project, there needs to be guidelines to keep it as systematic as possible.

Finally, please don’t hesitate to send us a message either on FB or via our email nzbirdatlas@wmil.co.nz. We are here to answer any questions you may have and ultimately support all our participants.

Also if you receive an email from us in regards to your checklists and the guidelines above please don’t take it personally, we are simply trying to encourage all Atlasers to follow these guidelines. This is not only to help increase the resolution of your data over time and space, but also to then increase the quality of the analysis that can then better inform bird conservation over the coming decades. Something close to all of our hearts.

Happy Atlasing and stay safe

NZ Bird Atlas Team
(Mike, Dan, Sam & Pat)

[Clinton9]

Unfortunately nobody want me to do bird atlas for OSNZ.

[Ian McLean]

Unfortunately nobody want me to do bird atlas for OSNZ.

Clinton9, you don't need to have anyone ask you to do it. Just, set yourself up for it, go out there & do it ! Any atlassing you can do is great, even if it's just in your garden or local park.

[burgind]

Hi everyone,

We hope this reaches you safe and well.

We just wanted to share a few things with you, the first being our first Atlas challenge! We’re really excited about this one, something that ALL Atlasers can participate in. Skye Wishart and Edin Whitehead have very kindly provided a signed copy of their recent book The Brilliance of Birds for an Atlaser to win as part of October’s challenge. During October one lucky Atlaser has the chance to win this stunning book by simply contributing to the New Zealand Bird Atlas. All you have to do is submit 31 or more complete checklists during October, that include counts for every species reported (no X’s!), to the NZ Bird Atlas portal. https://ebird.org/atlasnz/news/october-atlas-challenge

The second is a recent article on the use of ‘spuhs’ and ‘slashes’ which we hope can provide support and guidance on giving more birders confidence when encountering difficult to ID species by using these ID tags. https://ebird.org/atlasnz/news/spuhs-and-slashes

Finally, we will be putting out more posts on social media about Global Big Day on October 17th and Global Bird Weekend (17th-18th). More information can be found here https://ebird.org/atlasnz/news/october- ... -than-ever

We regularly update the NZBA eBird portal News reel so be sure to keep an eye on it - https://ebird.org/atlasnz/news

Any questions please don’t hesitate to sing out.

Best wishes and happy Atlasing,

NZ Bird Atlas Team

[AngryBird45]

Got this on Thursday.