Blogging Birds Share Data

The Blogging Birds are four red kites from Scotland. Wyvis, Moray, Millie, and Ussie regularly submit posts explaining where they've been and what they've been doing. You may be wondering how birds blog. To be fair, the birds aren't doing the writing, but GPS data is being used to explain the birds' movements. This article in The Chronicle of Education explains how it works.

Here's a snippet covering what Moray was up to from August 19 to August 25:

"Monday to Sunday Moray spent most of her time around Farraline and Errogie. During this time she was seen mainly on farmland while making odd journeys to heather. She must have been feasting on worms and insects which are in abundance in farmland. But what could she be looking for in heather?"

The article in The Chronicle gives another example of data narration. Oil platforms are heavily monitored and generate a lot of data. Natural-language generation can send a clear, easily understood message to the home office. The message explains what happened and how frequently, in words, rather than in data that must be analyzed.

Data narration might be a great tool for tracking released animals and helping the public to gain a better understanding of animals' movements. What do you think about data narration? How do you think it should be used, if at all?

Image Credit: snapshot from http://redkite.abdn.ac.uk/new/blog/