My family and I have had a great time participating in the Aussie Backyard Bird Count
I installed the app on my phone and have really enjoyed trying to squeeze as many species as I can into the 20 minutes allocated for each count session.
The total number of species I counted, just within the immediate vicinity of my house was:
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| Three species of finches we've sighted in our garden (drawing courtesy of D. Baxstar 'Outside The Box' |
Having taken the time to sit for 20 minutes each morning and just look at the birds around me, I know I am blessed! Australia has so much wildlife but for a capital city (OK a very small one) Darwin has a lot more species diversity than many people would realise.
During my 20 minute bird counts spending most of my time sitting on a chair at my front porch I managed to count 26 species of birds!
I have learned a few things during this bird count. Firstly, in the long period between now and my enthusiastic days of regular bird watching my ability to identify bird species has diminished monstrously! My eyesight isn't what it used to be so I am having to get the binoculars out in order to correctly identify birds I should know at a glance and I have found that I can hear the very distinctive calls and songs of birds all around me, just out of sight which I can't for the life of me identify! It's a disgrace!
During my 20 minute bird counts spending most of my time sitting on a chair at my front porch I managed to count 26 species of birds!
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| Screenshot of my stats... unfortunately I couldn't include the full list. |
I have learned a few things during this bird count. Firstly, in the long period between now and my enthusiastic days of regular bird watching my ability to identify bird species has diminished monstrously! My eyesight isn't what it used to be so I am having to get the binoculars out in order to correctly identify birds I should know at a glance and I have found that I can hear the very distinctive calls and songs of birds all around me, just out of sight which I can't for the life of me identify! It's a disgrace!
So! That's it! I've decided to get serious! I'm reading up on all my local species and am looking for a good birdsong database to download, apparently they now make some pretty decent apps to put on your phone! Oh yeh and for inspiration the whole family is going to sit down and watch that awesome birding movie The Big Year. COOL!
2 comments:
What an enjoyable hobby, David!
Looks like you can spend more than the 20 minutes with so many species of birds in Darwin. That's awesome!
Good for the body and mind, eh?
Have a Happy Weekend.
Peace :)
Yes, we are surrounded by an abundance of wildlife here. It's truly amazing. I wish I could have taken a photo of the standoff I saw between a Curlew (or Bush thick-knee)and a yellow spotted goanna.
The bird was standing with it's winds outstretched while the goanna was standing up on it's hind legs.
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