SuperSites Data Portal

The aim of the bird surveys at Robson Creek are to provide a description of the bird community, including its richness and composition, and having established a baseline description to monitor the dynamics and phenology of the community over time. The aim is to be able to link this data to environmental drivers of dynamics.

Ideally the monitoring could also be used as means of estimating and monitoring abundance of individual species. Unfortunately, most if not all species at the site can move rapidly between transects and within transects. This means that the survey transects are not independent of each other and it cannot be assumed that the observations of individual birds or groups of birds encountered are independent of each other on a transect or even at a point on a transect. Given that that most detections are by ear and not by eye means there is no guarantee that new detections at a point are not simply a bird moving.

Bird surveys at Robson Creek are conducted using walked transects and are largely in line with the Transect Method used in the Birdlife Australia Atlas Project.

Surveys are conducted monthly at a minimum but usually fortnightly. They are conducted in all weather conditions except those which would seriously impact detection ability, i.e. during very heavy rain or wind. Should heavy rain or wind occur after the commencement of a survey the survey is paused until those conditions end. If this seems unlikely the survey is abandoned until a later date.

Where ever possible surveys are conducted by the same two observer, though over time this, inevitably, cannot always be achieved.

Surveys are begun between 0600 and 0800with later start times occurring in the cooler months when days are shorter. Survey duration is two and a half to three hours.

Observers walk five set sections of trail on and around the Robson Ck plot. They move at such a pace that they spend a minimum of, and as close as possible, to 30 minutes on each section.

With each survey bout the observer records: Date, Time, Weather, Observer.

Encounters with birds can be visual or aural. At each encounter the following data is collected: species, number of individuals, whether the bird was seen or heard, sex (if possible), age (if possible), time since start of the survey.