WHERE IN THE WORLD?

For a birder, nothing is as exciting as seeing a bird you don’t know. But many of us make the same mistake: We grab a bird guide and furiously start paging through the illustrations.

- FAANSIE PEACOCK

You should actually ignore those illustrations and rather study the distribution maps. Experienced birders pore over those miniature maps because they’re the key to unlocking the identification of the confusing bird.

How do we know a species occurs in one place and not another? Distribution maps are based on data gathered over many years by keen birders like you and me. Initiatives like the Southern African Bird Atlas Project (SABAP2) have built a large distribution database ( sabap2.birdmap.africa)with the help of volunteers. Every time you head out on a dirt road, you can compile a list of the birds you see – along with the co-ordinates of their locations – and send it in. You can also update the database in real-time by using a smartphone app like Bird-Lasser ( birdlasser. com) – if you have cellphone reception, that is.

Since the start of the SABAP2 project in 2007, more than 17 million entries have been recorded. The international version of this project is known as e-Bird – hundreds of thousands of birders collect 100 million records annually. Algorithms and (more) experts help to make sure no-mistakes creep in.