| 2012 | All years |
|---|---|
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| 4DG 2012 - 80% Challenge! | ||
|---|---|---|
| Get four degrees of 'greater Gauteng' to green in 2012 | ||
| more info... | ||
| Surveys needed to reach target | Pentads | Cards to go |
| 4 | 263 | 1052 |
| 3 | 127 | 381 |
| 2 | 77 | 154 |
| 1 | 36 | 36 |
| Total cards counting towards the challenge | 681 | |
| Total cards still needed for target | 1623 | |
| Total cards for target | 2304 | |
| Pentad with 1 or more cards | 313 | 54.34% |
| Pentad with 2 or more cards | 186 | 32.29% |
| Pentad with 3 or more cards | 109 | 18.92% |
| Pentad with 4 or more cards | 73 | 12.67% |
| Total cards submitted in 2012 | 1161 | |
| 747 Challenge - 7 cards, 4 degrees, 7 months. | ||
|---|---|---|
| Surveys needed to reach target | Pentads | Cards to go |
| 3 | 30 | 90 |
| 2 | 21 | 42 |
| 1 | 10 | 10 |
| Total cards needed | 142 | |
| Pentads with 7 cards or more | 515 (89.41%) | |
| 3DDG Challenge. Reach 4 cards or more! | ||
|---|---|---|
| Surveys needed to reach target | Pentads | Cards to go |
| 4 | 27 | 108 |
| 3 | 59 | 177 |
| 2 | 60 | 120 |
| 1 | 38 | 38 |
| Total cards needed | 443 | |
| Pentads with 4 cards or more | 417 (69.38%) | |
| Date of survey | Pentad | Compiler |
|---|---|---|
| 2012-05-20 | 2420_3030 | Roerig, Joel |
| 2012-05-15 | 2420_3055 | Roerig, Joel |
| 2012-05-19 | 2415_3050 | Roerig, Joel |
| 2012-05-14 | 3245_1810 | du Plessis, Linda |
| 2012-05-20 | 2630_2820 | Pocock, Bruce |
| 2012-05-16 | 2935_3100 | Wood, Tim |
| 2012-05-13 | 2945_3045 | Wood, Tim |
| 2012-05-14 | 2945_3050 | Wood, Tim |
| 2012-05-13 | 2555_2800 | Marx, Andre |
| 2012-05-19 | 3320_1855 | Hellmann, Fiona |
| 2012-05-20 | 2445_2620 | Jones, Matt |
| 2012-05-19 | 2625_2800 | Kleynhans, Dawie |
| 2012-05-13 | 2645_2745 | Kleynhans, Dawie |
| 2012-05-17 | 2740_2305 | van Tonder, Rowan Conrad |
| 2012-05-13 | 2550_2530 | Phiri, Mpho |
| 2011-11-27 | 2430_2805 | Paterson, D. Bruce |
| 2012-05-19 | 2440_2615 | Jones, Matt |
| 2012-05-18 | 2440_2610 | Jones, Matt |
| 2012-05-17 | 2440_2610 | Jones, Matt |
| 2012-02-12 | 2600_2740 | Paterson, D. Bruce |
| 2012-05-12 | 2440_2625 | Hawkins, Ross |
| 2012-05-11 | 2445_2615 | Hawkins, Ross |
| 2012-04-20 | 3400_2305 | Drowley, John |
| 2011-11-26 | 2420_2750 | Paterson, D. Bruce |
| 2011-12-04 | 2605_2705 | Paterson, D. Bruce |
| 2012-05-12 | 2605_2750 | Branfield, Andy |
| 2012-05-14 | 2500_2605 | Jones, Matt |
| 2012-05-08 | 2520_2030 | Walden, Amanda Barbera |
| 2012-05-06 | 2610_2030 | Walden, Amanda Barbera |
| 2012-05-13 | 2800_3205 | Malan, Tineke |
Sixty-one percent – in 18 days!
Les Underhill (2012-05-19)
61% SABAP2 coverage today. It is only 18 days since we celebrated 60% – this is thanks to all the atlasers who participated in the Mareetsane Expedition over the long weekend at the start of this month, and all the atlasers who participated in the expedition from afar through "empathy atlasing!"
The last time we did a one percent increase in less than 20 days was in June 2010, when the increase was from 40% to 41%, and we did it in 13 days. That was attributable to the mega-expedition to the Vryburg district. It seems that expeditions, large and small, are the secret for rapid increases in the coverage statistic!
A one percent increase needs 173 new pentads to be atlased. For this particular one percent increase, 70 of the new pentads were from North West Province. Another 41 were from the Northern Cape, and the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape contributed 14 each. The remainder to bring the total to 173 were spread across the other regions.
From the perspective of the statisticians, there is another celebration today. Exactly 20% of the pentads in the entire atlasing region have four or more checklists. These pentads are GREEN and darker colours on the coverage map. If you are not in a position to travel wide and expand SABAP2 coverage, it is equally important to go deep close to home and increase the number of checklists per pentad – we can never have too many checklists for a pentad. But the statisticians would really like you to target the 41% of pentads which are either YELLOW (one checklist) or ORANGE (two or three checklists), and to work towards turning them GREEN and darker!
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70 000 checklists – Keep the SABAP2 blaze alight
Les Underhill (2012-05-19)
This week on Thursday SABAP2 reached 70000 checklists submitted into the SABAP2 database. This table gives the dates on which SABAP2 atlasers achieved 10000, 20000, ..., 70000 checklists, respectively:
| Checklists | Date | Days |
| 0 | 01/07/2007 | |
| 10000 | 19/12/2008 | 537 |
| 20000 | 04/08/2009 | 228 |
| 30000 | 21/02/2010 | 201 |
| 40000 | 21/09/2010 | 212 |
| 50000 | 21/03/2011 | 181 |
| 60000 | 27/10/2011 | 220 |
| 70000 | 17/05/2012 | 203 |
The striking thing is that the first 10000 checklists took 537 days, nearly 18 months from the start of the project in July 2007 until December 2008. Since then, we have been ticking off each additional 10000 checklists fairly consistently at intervals of around 200 days. Our best 10000 was getting from 40000 to 50000 in only 181 days, between 21 September 2010 and 21 March 2011.
At face value, it is alarming that the SABAP2 database is still only half the size of the SABAP1 database! That contained 147000 checklists, and 7.3 million records (compared with SABAP2's 3.7 million). But that comparison is simplistic because a large proportion, probably as many as half, of the checklists in SABAP1 were made prior to the formal start of SABAP1 in 1987. The SABAP1 database incorporated checklists from regional atlases for the Southwestern Cape, Free State and the old Transvaal, and as much compatible data from 1980 onwards, that we could lay our hands on!
Let us not relax on our laurels. SABAP1 was described as the largest biodiversity project ever conducted on the continent of Africa. Let us keep the fire burning. Let us continue to steadily build SABAP2 so that it becomes even bigger than SABAP1 was. Each of our contributions might seem small and insignificant. The strength of SABAP2 lies in our ability to pool our individual resources into something massive, and massively influential in understanding trends in biodiversity and in guiding policy, legislation and conservation management.
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SABAP2012 at 15%
Les Underhill (2012-05-14)
Five and a half months through the year, and SABAP2012 is on 15%. Given that the rate of progress inevitably slows down as easily accessible pentads are reached, this means that we are on track for at least doubling this coverage in the remaining seven and a half months until the end of 2012. We set the initial target for SABAP2012 at 30%, because this is what we achieved in SABAP2011 (without actually trying to visit as many pentads in the year as possible).
The value of trying to visit as many pentads as possible on an annual basis, and of getting several checklists for each pentad in each year, is that it will enable us to make statistically defensible annual statements on variation in timing of migration, both arrival and departure, the impact of differing amounts of rainfall on bird distributions, and trends through time in distribution, both range expansions and contractions. If we can achieve this, South Africa will be the first country on the planet to use bird atlasing as a component of the annual bird monitoring programme. 30% coverage, annually, seems to just enough to be able to do this.
At the same time, we do not want to lose sight of the other priority, and that is, cumulatively through the years, to get as much of the atlas region as possible covered. We are delighted to have passed the 60% coverage level overall at the start of this month. The next big milestone is 2/3rds coverage, 66.67%, and we could easily achieve that by the end of the summer holidays. But it will probably take a few dedicated expeditions to get us there.
There are also regional milestones achieved over the weekend. Yesterday, the Western Cape reached 80% coverage. The last few one-percents in the search for 100% coverage are really tough, so we also celebrate KwaZulu-Natal reaching 96.0% coverage, with only 52 pentads out of 1296 left to visit.
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more news...
World Migratory Birds Day 2012 – 12–13 May ...Cape Vultures in free fall...
24000 records in the Virtual Museum for butterflies, and how to make lists of butterflies...
Report back: Namibia Bird Club's 50th anniversary celebrations, and the launch of SABAP2 in Namibia...
Atlasing expedition to the Ceres Karoo – 18–20 May...
Virtual Museum for dragonflies and damselflies – 756 records identified...
The ADU's Virtual Museums are gaining momentum...
Sixty percent...
Mareetsane atlasing expedition: wrap up report...
3DDG challenge - seven months on...
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