So many of us who spend time birding or in the field end up
seeing things of real interest - be it an unusual record or number
of birds, interaction between species or a form of behaviour.
Most, if not all of these observations are very relevant to our
understanding of the birds or other biodiversity around us - and
yet most of the observations end up at best staying in our note
book or maybe being put out there on a list server like
kenyabirdsnet.
I've mentioned the online journal 'Biodiversity
Observations' previously - which is specifically designed to
receive and publish those sorts of observations - ones that a
peer-reviewed journal would not accept.
The journal has just had an upgrade and is now officially hosted
by the University of Cape Town https://journals.uct.ac.za/index.php/BO/
and even better it is now searched by Google
Scholar - so if you search for anything that has been
published in BO, it will pick it up.
Just to encourage those who have not published much before, try
it... enter in Google Scholar 'camels snacking' and you'll get
John Gitiri's paper on the observation he put out on this list
server about camels eating weaver nests. He wrote it up and it has
been published - one of only a handful of publications /
references pretty much on any animal consuming birds nests...
Many of the observations reported in this list server would actually qualify for publication in Biodiversity Observations - and I'd encourage all and anyone with such records to do so...
FYI, the description of the journal on the website states:
Biodiversity Observations is the continuation of Ornithological Observations (volumes 1 to 6), it is a semi-scientific e-journal published by the Animal Demography Unit at the University of Cape Town.
Biodiversity Observations accepts papers containing information about biodiversity in general. This includes descriptions of distribution, behaviour, breeding, foraging, food, movement, measurements, habitat and colouration/plumage. It will also consider for publication a variety of other interesting or relevant biodiversity material: reports of projects and conferences, annotated checklists for a site or region, specialist bibliographies, book reviews and any other interesting or relevant material. Further details and guidelines to authors are on this website.
Biodiversity Observations aims to create a platform for scientists and citizen scientists to publish a variety of biodiversity related contributions as quickly as possible. The papers will not be peer-reviewed or refereed, but the Edtiorial Committee will ensure a high standard is maintained. We encourage dialogue and discussion, so papers reflecting on topics already published will be considered. We invite interested parties from all walks of life to submit contributions to be considered for publication.It would be great to see a lot more being published from Kenya...
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Colin Jackson
A Rocha Kenya
Cell:
+254 (0)722 842366
http://www.arocha.org
http://www.assets-kenya.org
http://kenyabirdmap.adu.org.za