Aussie Backyard Bird Count

Story and photo by Dorothy Pashniak

Warm summer weather and the migratory shorebirds have been arriving to enjoy our summer and to escape the arctic cold in the far north of the world. The numbers of birds will continue to build until late November or even into December.

Meanwhile – our own resident bush birds sometimes get taken for granted. They are always there and seldom get a lot of attention. However, Birdlife Australia wants everyone to especially notice our own backyard birds during the National Bird Week – October 20-26. This week has been observed and promoted since the early 1900s.

This year Birdlife Australia and Birds in Backyards are launching the Aussie Backyard Bird Count. This event will be the biggest citizen science event ever held in Australia!

If you have a backyard and if there are any birds in it then you are wanted to contribute. Just take 20 minutes to notice what and how many birds are there. This can be done any time during that week. Then go to the web site and enter this data under your name and address. It is hoped that there will be live data and information on where it is being collected all during that week.

So to be involved go to the web site of www.aussiebirdcount.org.au . The web site will have information and pictures to help you ID any birds you may not know. There will even be an “app” to install on your mobile device to help you ID the birds. This should be available early in October. (I had hoped to give a little more detail on the birds available for ID and also the app but so far the web site only has a counter showing exactly how much time is left until the Backyard Bird Count starts. It is currently showing days, hours, minutes and seconds! If the folks in charge of the web site continue to give this amount of detail about the rest of the count then it should be very good indeed!)

To help in our own shorebird counts phone Dorothy on 54880057.