Citizen science
I am also passionate about citizen science, particularly environmental citizen science. I’m active on two biodiversity citizen science platforms – eBird and iNaturalist. I’m also one of ~100,000 volunteers who submit short weekly surveys on any symptoms of respiratory illness I have as part of FluTracking.
FluTracking
FluTracking uses the crowdsourced survey data to monitor respiratory illnesses such as Influenza, COVID-19 and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) in Australia and New Zealand. I signed up during the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020 and in 2024 there were 114,588 Australian and New Zealand FluTrackers who completed at least one survey.
eBird and iNaturalist
On both of these platforms users record their observations of nature. While eBird is solely focussed on bird sightings and does not require photos or sound recordings, iNaturalist curates observations of all organisms (plants, animals, fungi etc) and requires users to upload photos or sound recordings.
I’ve recorded 4,062 iNaturalist observations of 1,149 unique species to date. The majority of these are not bird sightings which I primarily share in eBird here unless I’m birding outside of Australia.
My eBird observations (651 unqiue bird species world-wide)
| Country | Unique Bird Species | Favourite Species Observed |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | 338 | Australian Painted-snipe (Rostratula australis) |
| South Africa | 153 | Common Hoopoe (Upupa epops) |
| USA | 116 | Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus) |
| Singapore | 49 | Oriental Pied-Hornbill (Anthracoceros albirostris) |
| New Zealand | 61 | North Island Robin (Petroica longipes) |
I started actively birding in 2019, and my “best” year in terms of bird species seen was 2023. It was my first time going overseas again since the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020. It included two work trips and a holiday during which I was lucky to go birding in South Africa, USA and New Zealand!
| Year | Unique Bird Species |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 146 |
| 2024 | 132 |
| 2023 | 433 |
| 2022 | 185 |
| 2021 | 244 |
| 2020 | 207 |
| 2019 | 96 |
| 2018 | 42 |
My iNaturalist observations (1,150 unique species world-wide)
| Country | Total Observations | Unique Species |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | 3011 | 761 |
| South Africa | 328 | 141 |
| USA | 401 | 149 |
| Singapore | 269 | 102 |
| New Zealand | 49 | 39 |
Maps of my iNaturalist observations (which mostly overlap with my eBird observations)
A taxonomic summary of my iNaturalist observations
Here is a tree view of the observations: 
My favourite orders of insect to observe are odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) and lepidoptera (butterflies and moths): 
One of my all time favourite dragonfly photographs I’ve taken is of this Graphic Flutterer (Rhyothemis graphiptera) 
All images on this website are original works by me and are protected by copyright. Please contact me for permission before using them elsewhere.