Abstract
Citizen science approaches can result in larger data sets than studies conducted by individuals. However, it has the risks of errors and quality bias. To overcome these demerits of citizen science, we implemented a study of barn swallows Hirundo rustica, a well-known and well-regarded Japanese bird that frequently nests in railroad stations. The railroad stations are ideal survey sites for the citizen science approach because they inherently avoid several potential source of errors, including geographic bias and dissimilar conditions. Railroad stations enhance citizen science because 1) they include many locations from urbanized to rural landscapes, with appropriate distance intervals across several regions, 2) they have similar small-scale environmental conditions, consisting of open concrete buildings, and 3) they are easily accessible by the general populace of potential citizen scientists. In this study, assisted by 124 citizen scientists, we conducted a survey of nesting barn swallows in the Kinki District, which included six prefectures in south-central Japan. The data was collected from 1336 railroad stations between the dates of 16 May to 22 July, 2012. We posted all the nesting records as open data in the Creative Commons, license CC-BY 4.0 International.
Data download: http://www.bird-research.jp/appendix/br12/12r01.zip
