New Zealand’s longest running citizen science project, THE NEW ZEALAND GARDEN BIRD SURVEY, kicks off on Saturday, 29 June and we need you to help us get as many people as possible out in their gardens counting birds.
In brief:
This is the 17th annual New Zealand Garden Bird Survey run by Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research. Since 2007, more than 70,000 surveys have been submitted by tens of thousands of volunteer citizen scientists giving us enough data to begin establishing definitive trends for increasing or declining numbers of birds.- We ask people to count all the birds they see or hear in their garden for ONE HOUR ON ONE DAY during the nine-day period from 29 June to 7 July.
- Every sighting is recorded on a tally sheet with the observations then submitted via an online form on the Garden Bird website. All the data we receive is then processed through a super-computer with the results published in the State of New Zealand Garden Birds | Te Āhua o ngā Manu o te Kāri I Aotearoa
- What will 2024 bring? Will pahirini (chaffinch) and tauhou (silvereye) continue their decline as the 2023 report shows is happening? Will South Island tūī sightings continue to increase? We need the eyes and ears of the country to help our scientists understand the changing world around us.
How you can help:
Share information about the Survey with your networks, friends and whānau.
There are a host of bilingual resources, including bird ID posters, available on the Garden Bird Survey website.
Tui photographed by Tony Stoddart in 2016
There are some exciting prizes to be won including an OM System OM-5 camera with 14-150mm lens for the best bird photo submitted during the survey period, and prizes for the tamariki with the best colouring-in skills. Head to the Garden Bird website and sign up to the newsletter for a chance to win a stunning Buller’s Birds poster.
More photos, social media sharing tiles and other resources are downloadable from the Garden Bird website
We’d love to reach our target of adding another 10,000 surveys to our data resource this year, but we need lots of help to make that happen. You sharing this event with your networks would be a huge help.
Fun fact – Dunedin has always had most people taking part in the survey, until Nelson leapt to the top of the counting tree last year to claim the title of most counters in a region – who will it be in 2024?