BirdLife Australia, Birdata (original) (raw)

Dataset type

This dataset that contains primary occurrence data for species.

Description

Birdata is BirdLife Australia’s online national bird monitoring platform. Compiled from the combined efforts of professional researchers and citizen scientists, Birdata is Australia’s longest running digital database for bird sightings. It tells us where our birds are living, and how their populations are changing over time. It contains nationwide expert and citizen science surveys, as well as targeted threatened species surveys critical to BirdLife's conservation programs.

The information held in Birdata is also used more widely for publications, legislation and academic research throughout Australia. Each time a Birdata survey is submitted, it is added into our database and directly contributes not only to BirdLife Australia’s on-the-ground conservation work, but to broader conservation planning and land management. Birdata records are shared every week with community groups, corporations, universities and government bodies to inform decision making and research, to give Australia’s birds the best possible future!

Australia’s largest and longest-running wildlife database, Birdata’s impact on conservation in our country is hard to over-estimate. Even more importantly, with thousands of citizen scientists contributing to it every year, it is a live and growing dataset. We achieve this because Birdata is not just a database, but also, a simple and fun survey tool for citizen scientists, targeted at collecting the data we need to save our most threatened species and keep all of Australia alive with our beautiful common birds. In practice, this means Birdata has been used to:

- Elevate the conservation status of the Plains-wanderer, Australasian Bittern, Eastern Curlew and Australian Painted Snipe (among other species) in recent years.

- Inform the comprehensive Action Plan for Australia’s Birds.

- Inform the declaration of over 300 Key Biodiversity Areas.

- Direct private and government protected area networks.

- Sound the alarm bell for declining species like the Mallee Striated Grasswren.

- Influence local fire management.

- Inform government and NGO conservation actions.

The Atlas of Living Australia holds non‑Restricted Access species data and a subset of Restricted Access species data from Birdata. To obtain extracts that include restricted species, please contact BirdLife Australia directly. As BirdLife data is provided under a non‑commercial licence, consultants must also liaise with BirdLife to arrange access to full‑resolution records for any commercial use.

You can submit information to this important environmental database by conducting a survey in the Birdata app or on our website: https://birdata.birdlife.org.au/

Type of content

Includes: Point occurrence data.

Citation

BirdLife Australia (2026). Birdata https://birdata.birdlife.org.au). Accessed via the ALA on (21/04/2026).

Data generalisations

Restricted Access Species Records have been generalised to 10km by truncating latitude and longitude to one decimal place

Information withheld

Please note that details of records of Restricted Access Species have been removed from this data set. Visit https://birdata.birdlife.org.au/request-data to request data directly from BirdLife Australia.

Digitised records

Looking up... the number of records that can be accessed through the Atlas of Living Australia.This resource was last checked for updated data on 20 Apr 2026. The most recent data was published on 21 Apr 2026.

Download darwin core archive of all records

Metadata last updated on 2026-05-14 09:57:47.0