Bird Atlasing - SABAP2

The second bird atlas project of South Africa is currently underway, having kicked off in July 2007. It is known as SABAP2, following on from the project undertaken between 1987 and 1991 known as SABAP1. Like SABAP1, SABAP2 will run for a four year period. The focus is gain a better knowledge of the distribution of South African birds and birdlife, and to see how this has changed in the last 16 years. Distribution maps you see in bird field guides are derived from this data.

"ATLAS" may sound daunting, but the process of collecting data and submitting to the project is relatively simple. The main criteria is that for a full protocol card you need to spend an initial period of two hours in a particular pentad. With Google Earth, planning an atlasing outing has become far simpler, you can identify features at boundaries of the pentad, see what waterbodies are there, etc.

My method of atlasing:

- Decide which pentad you would like to atlas, checking out the Gap Analysis page to see where unatlased pentads are.

OR: Choose an area you'd like to go birdwatching in, and then check out which pentads are in the area. It is interesting to check bird species and see who else has already submitted checklists for that area. Check out the Zaagkuildrift pentad as an example.

- I use a handheld PDA with GPS with a window mount in the car to log the species as we see them. I use a "sequence" loaded onto Cybertracker software.

- I try and get onto as many roads and around as much of the pentad as possible

- Once I get home, I sync the PDA with my laptop, and open up Cybertracker - here I can sort the data in a variety of ways and choose dates etc that I want.

- I export the data into an Excel spreadsheet - I have a formula that works out the pentad code. I sort by pentad and bird name, remove the duplicates and then resort by date and time.

- I then open up the Database Management Software from SABAP2, and enter the data from the spreadsheet into a field sheet, upload to SABAP2, and I'm done. It really doesn't take too much time and effort.

- For a copy of the spreadsheet, click here: PENTADS.XLS
- For a copy of the Cybertracker sequence, click here: SABIRDS.CTX - note that you need v3.144 or higher for this to work.