During December last year the Atlas team were excited to have worked with various stakeholders to line up eBird workshops at various locations around the country. The response was incredible. Over 150 people attended the workshops, and Ian Davies and Tom Auer from the eBird team were able to engage with a broad audience on all things eBird, Atlas, Merlin and Status & Trends.
Ian McLean (Auckland BirdsNZ RR) introducing the first eBird workshop in Auckland (Stefan Marks)
Ian Davies (Team eBird) talking to the Auckland group (Stefan Marks)
Workshops in Wellington were hosted by Zealandia, with participants kindly permitted free entry into the sanctuary to practice the use of the eBird app and discuss more with Ian and Tom.
Nelson City Council teamed up with the Atlas team to host the Nelson event with an engaged group turning up on a Saturday morning. They even got to go out and get some Atlasing in with Tom and Ian, to discuss and test out the key topics of the talks.
Tom Auer (Team eBird) discussing the power of eBird and Atlas data in supporting cutting edge outputs including Status & Trends
The Nelson group enjoying the break between workshops and getting some Atlas data in
The workshop in Christchurch was hosted by Environment Canterbury with a key group of environmental managers and ecologists in attendance, to learn more about how eBird data could assist their conservation goals.
The final two workshops were in Otago, the first in Dunedin at Otago University, and the second in Queenstown with support from Queenstown Lakes District Council and Whakatipu Wildife Trust. Both workshops had great engagement and a fantastic group to learn from Tom and Ian’s talks with valuable discussions sparked from the topics.
🔑Key Topics Discussed
As you can imagine there was a lot discussed at each workshop, and it would be impossible to comprehensively list it all here. However some key topics to share were:
- Merlin
- A fantastic bird ID app that works intimately with eBird – download it here.
- There is a Photo ID feature, as well as Sound ID. The latter is in progress, so currently only works for a handful of introduced species. However, it is being worked on to ensure that it works for as many endemic and native species as possible!
- Upload sound recordings of native and endemic species to your eBird checklists! Even phone recordings are immensely valuable. Check out how best to record and upload via the links.
- eBird
- The use of Spuh’s and Slashes and how it is encouraged to capture this inevitable uncertainty – learn more here.
- Atlas Essentials and their value
- What does a complete checklist really mean?
- Current Atlas coverage and the Effort Map
- Counting Birds
- Download Data for Conservation here
- Status & Trends
- Explore NZ species here.
- Watch the video of the Nelson Workshop to get a full recap of Tom’s talk regarding this.
🎬Video To Recap
We recorded the Nelson Workshop to provide a means for those who couldn’t make it, to still get all the information. Additionally, for those who attended it may provide a welcome recap on all that was discussed. You can watch it here.
It is important to note this isn’t a theatrical production and is roughly put together. We appreciate it is difficult to hear audience members questions, and we had some SD card issues, but we still believe it should prove useful despite these limitations!
🙏Thank you
The Atlas team would like to say a huge thank you to all of you who came along for these workshops. We hope you enjoyed them, and found them useful. If you couldn’t attend, please do watch the video recap above.
Of course, a massive thanks to Ian McLean, Auckland City Council, Dr Rachael Shaw, Jo Ledington, Zealandia, Phil Cochrane, Nelson City Council, Jean Jack, Environment Canterbury, Mary Thompson, Bruce McKinlay, University of Otago, Dawn Palmer, Queenstown Lakes District Council and Whakatipu Wildife Trust. You were all pivotal in setting up eBird workshops across the country!
Finally, thank you so much to Ian Davies and Tom Auer who delivered each workshop so professionally, specifically tailoring them to each group, and answering everyone’s questions comprehensively.
Our hope is you continue to see the value of regularly uploading your bird observations to eBird to support the Atlas project and beyond, for bird research and conservation in Aotearoa New Zealand.
🦉Happy Atlasing!