It did not take long for me to break the first of my New Year resolutions. I visited the Waterworks Reserve after vowing in late December I’d give my favourite birding location a break.
The promise was prompted by a reader who complained that I invariably write about the birds of the reserve and I ignore other locations, particularly the dry and sandy eastern shore where the bird life differs from the wet forests of the Waterworks Valley.
The point was taken but I could not resist popping in at the reserve to check what birds were about a glorious first day of the year, when it appeared summer had finally arrived a month late.
I was rewarded by the sight of a little pied cormorant, a rare bird for the reserve. The cormorant had entered my list of birds recorded there late last year, one I shared with the Hobart City Council for a wildlife survey of the Waterworks.
The bird list revealed a shortfall in my birding. I have never recorded a list for each visit, my trips to the reserve are often more about brisk walking for exercise than birding and I have only jotted down rare sightings.
Birdwatchers, especially the fanatical “twitchers”, are known for compiling life-lists of birds spotted, but there is a growing trend to share this information on sightings for Birdlife Australia’s Birdata initiative.
At a time when birds of virtually all species are under considerable threat in Australia, such information can be used to plot not only the scale of the decline, and in what areas and what species it is most marked, but to enable conservation measures to be put in place.
The threat of the impact of climate change is the main driver for surveys of all forms of flora and fauna, although the loss of natural environments is a direct, more urgent factor in species loss.
The compiling of data is a modern take on the study of phenology, the timings of cyclical or seasonal biological events, which dates back to ancient observations of bird migration. It received prominence in the early 19th century when Leonard Blomefield published A Naturalist’s Calendar which contained meticulous records of flowering, fruiting and bud burst. Blomefield is remembered as the man who turned down the post of naturalist on the voyage of HMS Beagle: second-choice Charles Darwin sailed instead.
Although Blomefield settled into the life of a country parson, his record of natural cycles of life now form a baseline for recognising how some plants are adjusting to climate change. In an appreciative letter to him, in 1845, Darwin noted that these are “what people are pleased generally to call trifling facts. These are the facts which make one understand the working or economy of nature.”
Details of the Birddata project can be found at https://birdata.birdlife.org.au/