Birding News
January 2023 Update: #LocalBigYear on BUBO Listing is now #LocalPatch: this is more logical as we support #LocalBigLife for your patch life lists, as well as year lists for any year.
You may have seen the publicity about #LocalBigYear, an initiative from Birdwatch and BirdGuides, sponsored by The Birder’s Store and Celestron, to encourage birders to concentrate birding efforts locally in 2022.
The idea of #LocalBigYear is to regularly watch a patch in your local area, e.g. your own garden, an OS square or perhaps a 10-km radius from your front door. Watching a convenient local patch gives a reat insight into how things change through the seasons, when migrants arrive and depart, when birds sing and breed, and help understand the area's avifauna. It's also a wonderful way to just relax and enjoy observing birds and nature, and hopefully ease the stresses we have all had over the past two years.
#LocalBigYear is informal, with no strict rules. You are encouraged though to share your local birding adventures throughout the year by tagging #LocalBigYear on social media, and there are prizes available for taking part! Read more about #LocalBigYear from Birdguides.
#LocalBigYear on BUBO Listing
For an added dimension, you can record your #LocalBigYear lists on BUBO Listing, wherever you are located, and compare with others taking part. To create a #LocalBigYear list, create a 2022 year list for your chosen location (you could use your county, or add a specific new site within it if it doesn't exist already), ensure it is a year list for 2022 and select the new list type of "#LocalBigYear" from the dropdown. It's helpful to use the list comments to describe your area.
You can view all the British #LocalBigYear lists for the current year simply by visiting https://bubo.org/LocalBigYear. (Click Show List Parameters and change location to view only lists from specific British counties, or other countries, or change year to view previous years.) Don't forget to share on Facebook, Twitter and other social media with the hashtag #LocalBigYear and tag us @BUBOListing!
An IOC Checklist for the Oriental Region now exists at BUBO Listing. This provides an alternative to the Oriental Bird Club (OBC) list, the taxonomy of which is now quite out of date. We'll keep the taxonomy of the IOC list up to date as we do for the other IOC lists on the site, each time an update to the IOC global list is released.
The IOC list includes only species found in the Oriental zoogeographic region (plus a few dozen borderline cases which are given the benefit of the doubt). This means that all species of the Indian subcontinent and southern Chinese provinces (as well as Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and Indonesia away from New Guinea) are included, but species found only in the northern, Palearctic parts of Asia, which are included in the OBC list, are omitted.
If you notice any missing species, or species which should not have been included, please get in touch. Many thanks to Steve Preddy for his work compiling this.
Please help out Jamal Essayli who is researching "the characteristics of the under-studied population of serious birders" as part of his PhD in clinical psychology, by completing his survey on Investigating the Distinctive Features of Birders!
From Jamal: "My name is Jamal Essayli and I am currently a graduate student working towards a PhD in clinical psychology. One project of keen interest to me involves research on the characteristics of the under-studied population of serious birders. Anecdotal evidence seems to suggest some similarities between serious birding and other demanding, intense-focused pursuits such as ultrarunning, mountain climbing, and long-distance swimming, yet there has been surprisingly little research investigating these behaviors. Some of the topics that I’m hoping to explore are the range of individuals’ motivations for birding, how people first became involved in birding, specific psychological traits that attract people to birding and make them good at it, and the impact that serious birding can have on birders’ lives. While the general population seems to understand that extreme effort, focus, and dedication are necessary to be a successful ultrarunner or mountain climber, there appears to be a substantial underestimation of what serious birding entails."
I've always thought that birders make a great psychology study, so please do help him out. Participation should take between 20 – 50 minutes to answer a handful of questionnaires about birding and related topics. Some of it is a bit US-oriented, but Jamal is keen to hear from birders worldwide so please have a go.
Survey link: Investigating the Distinctive Features of Birders
Talking Naturally is a series of blog posts and conservation-based podcasts hosted by Charlie Moores (a nature blogger since 2004, co-founder of the NGO Birds Korea, and a passionate conservationist). Recent topics discussed include the crash in farmland bird populations across Europe as reported by the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme, restoration by Nature Iraq of the Mesopotamian marshes of southern Iraq formed by the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and BirdLife Malta's attempts to stop the mass killing of protected birds in Malta.
The Talking Naturally conference calls are an informal panel chat for birders and twitchers. The latest podcast included a short discussion about BUBO Listing and some utterings from the wonderful Gyr Crakes.
British & Irish birders only
The BTO have just launched a short online questionnaire, aimed at finding out a little more about how British and Irish birdwatchers watch and record birds, and how they use BirdTrack (if at all). The feedback will help the BirdTrack team prioritise future developments.
Participation of all British and Irish birders using BUBO Listing would be extremely welcome (if you haven't already completed the questionnaire via another route). It should take less than five minutes. The link to the questionnaire is http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9CBHDDR
Thanks
Andy Musgrove
BUBO Listing (& BTO Monitoring Team)