Citizen Science, AI, am I too old for this?

The answer is emphatically no, but I had until recently been a bit disturbed by some of the "progress" in the birding world. But, speaking to the ebird people at the Birdfair, I realised why most of my issues were irrelevant. There are many reasons why information on websites such as irecord and ebird are not always accurate, but the truth is it doesn't matter, it's the overall picture that's important. My main issues with ebird were that the "checking systems" were based on computer algorithms. and many records were probably erroneous. There are humans involved, but not all parts of the world are covered, and many adjudicators live nowhere near the area they cover. The reality is that a record will always be accepted (unless it is obviously an error) and most are never seen by a human. But, anything important, such as rare breeders or endangered species, and vagrants, will be assessed, that is actually a quite small percentage. Many of my records came to e-bird via the Macauley Library, as I used to supply photos of unusual species, before ebird was used much. 

To this day some of those records are "not accepted", even though they are photos and quite obviously correctly identified. This is very upsetting to some people, as is even having their opinion queried in the first place, but I have always realised the reality of the situation. The record is still on ebird, but everyone makes mistakes, and the rarer the species the more important it is to get it right. If there is doubt the record is merely not "officially" recorded.  Better than a rejection by a rarities committee, when it "disappears" forever.  Citizen Science is an overall view i.e. are there more, or less, Blackbirds in the UK in November this year as opposed to last year, or ten years ago? There used to be those, and probably still are, that take an unaccepted record very badly. I know a well-known author who claimed a bird in the UK. It was rejected, and he refused to ever submit another record. Many years later, I shared a room with him in Kazakhstan. He returned to the "camp" one evening and said he had seen a Siberian Rubythroat. Nobody believed him, but the next day we found two singing males. Citizen Science encourages people to report things, we all make mistakes but few of us become suppressors. 

Some of this data is handled better by some organisations than others. Most people are aware of the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch. There are a number of "flaws" in the recording process here, as apparently no consideration is taken of the size of "garden", the time of day, or many other factors. However it's main purpose is to get people interested in wildlife. Any really useful information gleaned will be used, but the numbers of Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers in gardens that are reported is taken with a very large pinch of salt. In the main we are talking about 10-20 common species, and the information obtained, because it is a huge sample, is averaged out to give a valid result. Rest assured, if you really did have Lesser Spots in your garden, the RSPB would contact you, but the majority are Greaters, coming to feeders and mis-identified. Most people, if they are keen enough to pursue matters further, will come to realise they had made a mistake, but no harm is done, we certainly don't have an erroneous record.

I will "fess up" to my own howling error from my early birding days. I identified a Reed Bunting as a Bearded Reedling (Tit, in those days). Don't ask me why, I wasn't drunk (or shouldn't have been as I'd driven to the site), but I was a beginner. I had done some local birding when a young teenager, and have always been interested in wildlife, but returned to it when I was thirty, a male Hen Harrier in Scotland whilst on holiday was the inspiration. I cannot explain it, I can only think I was so keen to see a Bearded Tit I just had a mental aberration, but I was convinced of my identification, for a couple of weeks at least.

 I was never very good at submitting records, since most of my early birding didn't involve anything out of the ordinary, and when, after seeing most of the regular UK species, I began twitching, someone else would have submitted the record anyway. I have reported a few rarities, an Arctic Warbler being probably my "best" record, but going to see a long-staying King Eider on the Ythan Estuary, back in the 1990s, and finding a second bird, also sticks in the memory.

However, outside birds there is a whole world of wildlife, and so much information readily and easily available to Citizen Science. The main thing for many people is moths, and as many birders now take up moth-trapping we are finding moth distributions to be actively changing annually, and what was previously thought of as rare may now be quite common. I trap in two different areas, and the species involved are up to 50% different. The same thing applies to butterflies, but without Citizen Science more species would undoubtedly have gone extinct before we realised. In fact, the term was apparently only coined in 1989, but at one time most recorders were in fact citizen scientists, since their only knowledge involved cleaning a shotgun, and selling specimens. My view is that far more people have become interested in wildlife by having something to record, and "being involved".

 I'm in danger of waffling now, and I'm going to save AI for another blog (yes, I use it, but always check). I have just recorded a first for East Norfolk, and thanks to help from the recorder had the identity confirmed. Not a bird, or even a moth, but a Lacewing! About twice the size of an "ordinary" Lacewing, it was in my moth trap, and there are apparently few records in the UK. Obviously this is partly because most people ignore Lacewings, as I would have done a few years ago, but I've never seen one before, so it can hardly be common. Just one small record, but the more interest there is from people, and the more Citizen Science grows, the greater the chance we have of conserving thousands of species worldwide. 

The UK is well served in that respect, but things were very different when I began foreign travel. Ordinary people in the US, "home" of ebird, were derided if they were birders rather than hunters, and most birders were women, it being considered not very "macho". Most countries had few birders, a good example being Thailand. Many Brits went to Thailand early in their careers, and to this day if you say you're going there on holiday there are immediate comments about night-life in the capital, to put it politely. But outside, everywhere you go has evidence of support for wildlife. Knowledgeable birders are everywhere, and will always be keen to show you not just birds, but any interesting wildlife. Several private individuals have set up small hides, albeit to raise money, but they also have a genuine interest in what is on their property. In turn, waders are habituated to workers (and thus birders) on salt pans, knowing they aren't likely to be shot, or trapped for food. Overall, hunting, which is usually subsistence hunting, still goes on but is much reduced, and they certainly don't kill one species to protect artificial stocks of another for "sport".

                                   All it takes is an interest in wildlife.