Annual report: 2011 overall picture

 This represents the first time I have attempted to compile a reasonable overall report on birds observed in Carwoola in a year.  While I did have a broad picture in  mind before starting what follows has to some extent evolved during writing.  In particular the decision to adopt a multi-post approach was made (note: not taken - a snooze is taken, a wine is sipped and a decision is made!!) after finding some difficulty in analysis of the long term changes.  (For those that think the result is too long, the Canberra Ornithologists Group Annual Bird Report is 80 A5 pages - and 2Mb to download!)

This report will be a bit heavy on numbers but I will attempt to explain them in terms of their meaning rather rather than simply a barrage of percentages!  For those who wish to skip the statistics I have tried to highlight the main points in bold blue.

By the end of 2011 we had recorded, over a 5 year period, 167 species in the catchment area of the Gazette.  74 (43.8%) of these had been recorded undertaking some form of breeding activity. mas shown in the linked post,  5 species were observed for the first time in 2011 and 19 were recorded in every month.

It is interesting that over a 30 year period the Garden Bird Survey, run by the Canberra Ornithologists Group has recorded 239 species with 108 of these (46.2%) recorded as breeding.  Given the much shorter time span and far fewer observers I think we have, to quote Young Mister Grace, "...all done very well."


In 2011, 141 species were recorded in the study area.  This is 84% of those ever recorded in the area.  This graph shows the number of species recorded per year.

Some analysis of the growth in species recorded has already been posted on this blog.  However the decrease in number of species from 2010 to 2011 requires a further look!  Watch this blog!

In 2011 a somewhat lower than average 36.6% of the species recorded were observed undertaking some form of breeding activity.  It is tempting to ascribe this to some attribute of the year (eg the very high rainfall in January - March).

Links to other sections of this report
2010 cf other 4 years, 2010 cf 2011, Breeding