Southern African Bird Atlas Project 2 (SABAP2)

[Gerrie_Horn]

For all those interested in birds and their distribution - http://sabap2.adu.org.za/about.php

SABAP2 is a follow-up from the first Southern African Bird Atlas Project (SABAP1) which took place from 1987-1991 and culminated in the publication of two volumes on the distribution and abundance of Southern African birds.

It involves a large number of lay people as citizen scientists recording the presence or absence of species within a grid cell within a set of rules and submitting it to the project.

During the past 15 years bird distributions in southern Africa have continued to change, possibly more rapidly than during the previous 30-40 years. SABAP2 was identified as the project to monitor these ecological changes.

So how can the 4x4 community assist? As can be seen from the current progress map at http://sabap2.adu.org.za/coverage_map_mapped.php large sections of the interior of the country have not been covered to date. Parts of these areas are difficult to access and it not easily accessible to persons with “plat karre”. Also having a GPS assist in determining the boundries of the ’Pentads’ (the 5' x 5' grid cells within which the recording is done)

So if you are interested in birds and remote (or even less remote) areas please join SABAP2 in collecting this valuable information. More information is available on the website on the protocol and the submission of data in electronic format (by special software). I have attached a document called ‘Atlassing for Dummies’ with a very brief description of the protocol.

Distribution maps of the differant species for SABAP1 as well as the current distribution is also available on the website. The data is updated every 3 hours to keep it up to date with the latest recordings.

(If you are into electronic toys, software exit whereby data is recorded onto your GPS PDA / Smartphone and can then be downloaded as a excel spreadsheet. Tracks of the pentads have also been written to download onto your GPS to assist in the collection of data)

You can also contact me @ [email protected] if more information is required.

Gerrie