On 22 Aug 2016 Veronica and Fred went on field work in the Western Treatment Plant, Werribee, Victoria. Mel, who curates the Victorian Biodiversity Atlas, also came with us.
Danny conducts bird counts so that the treatment plant can report on the impact it has on wildlife. He goes into more detail about the site:
As we went around the property, we saw a bus full of what must have been students, being told, as far as we know about the environmental aspects of the treatment plant.
Danny records thousands of bird counts across a year, but other people also contribute to the observation of this wetland.
He takes counts of the birds with a scope, binoculars and notepad and out of his 4WD. If he could improve his data entry system he may be able to monitor more species successfully. This could mean that he picks up on environmental problems affecting the birds before it’s too late.
From the government side, time is lost when different observers enter data slightly differently. If you multiply the retirement of the previous bird counter over multiple monitoring projects this adds up.
This information is collected in a specific way and stored in DELWPs Victorian Biodiversity Atlas.
There are many steps in this process that we could build better tools to use. These should be able to be worked with during the setting up of wetland surveys and during the data collection period.