Article by By Darryl Jones: “…We are in Brisbane for the biannual Australasian Ornithological Congress. Some of the biggest names in bird science and conservation have turned up to this session, eager to hear about the latest developments in eBird, the flagship program of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, located in Ithaca, New York state.
Everyone uses eBird….“You know what I find astonishing about this data?” Wood continues. “It’s that the so-called experts, the professional researchers and consultants and full-time birders, people like us, provided a trivial proportion of all this data. What is genuinely exciting is that almost all of it was submitted by ordinary birders dedicating their time to recording birds wherever they are and submitting them. People like this.”
The map vanishes and a video starts. It’s a TikTok “story”, so we are told. Many of us would not know TikTok from Instagram. But the people on the screen certainly do!
A rapidly changing gallery of young people appears. Moving to the beat of the soundtrack, they talk enthusiastically about bird identification. With staccato editing and pulsating music, kids as young as ten rave about the Merlin app, how to use it and what makes it so cool. (Merlin allows anyone to identify any bird around the world on their phone by using guide-book-type identifying features as well as the species calls.)
These are kids! Rapping about bird ID! And giving advice on how to get your ID right! It is a stark example of how much the image of birding has changed…(More)”.
