Taiwan Wild Bird Federation Bird Records Database

Study Extent

Sampling

Quality Control

Method steps

1. During the surveys, birdwatchers detected and identified bird species with naked eyes, through binoculars and telescopes, or by listening to the bird sounds, and filled out the checklists with species, number of individuals, location, date, start time, duration, sampling protocol, and survey effort.
2. Birdwatchers submitted their checklists to TWBF Database via a web form that validated the content and format of the entered records. To ensure the quality of data, each checklist was requested to at least provide the information of survey location, date, time, and the completeness of species lists (users could choose to submit a complete checklist, including all the species detected, or an incomplete checklist with only certain species they concerned).
3. We obtained the raw data from TWBF database and standardized it according to the Darwin Core format. The original contents were kept as much as possible during the data conversion unless there was an obvious mistake. Most of the checklists lack precise coordinates information because the TWBF database had requested only textual descriptions of survey location for a long time. Therefore, we inferred and restored the approximate area where each event took place according to the description, then located the latitude and longitude at a vicinal bird-watching hotspot, the location with suitable habitat, or the geographical center of the area. The uncertainty of coordinate inference was within 1000 meters. For those checklists stating further details about the sampling methods, we looked into the descriptions, defined the practices as transects, point counts, or area searches, and quantified the corresponding sampling efforts with transect length, time duration, or area covered.

1. Aves
   common name: Birds rank: class