Watch the birdie
It’s time to dust off the binoculars and sit out in the garden.
The Great Garden Bird Survey is on again, and the more people out helping, the better. Over time it will provide a useful picture of how the birds around us have changed.
This time last year N8N polished our binoculars and sat out on our front lawn with notebook and thermos – we clocked up 14 species, which included kingfisher, harrier, white-faced heron and mallard. We would have got more if Marley the resident feline hadn’t been so helpful.
This year we want to see more – and intend doing our survey one day this week – the bird watching needs to be done between now and July 7.
The survey is organised by Landcare Research, in collaboration with Forest and Bird and the Ornithological Society.
Folk are asked to record the largest number of each species detected at any one time in one hour of observation (not the total detected over the hour). The reason for counting the largest number detected at one time is so that individual birds are not counted twice.
And you can even be inside – viewing from a living room at home or school classroom at school looking out the window are all fine. As is sitting on a garden seat outside or watching a bird feeder or water bath.
More information, bird guides and survey forms can be obtained by clicking here.
Happy bird watching.
