An evening counting birds in Frasers Gully

We enjoyed a lovely late-summer’s evening in Frasers Gully on Thursday. The theme of our monthly meeting was bird counts.

First we discussed how doing bird counts is excellent for our mental health. In fact, observing birds can make you as happy as getting a payrise! It’s also helpful for monitoring the condition of our patch of Dunedin. As we trap, and remove rubbish, and restore native plants, we can expect an increase in birds (and therefore our own happiness)!

Identifying the species of bird can be a challenge. We looked through bird ID books to find birds that look similar, but we all managed to find key characteristics that separated them from each other. Finally we had a go at doing bird counts, using the NZ Garden Bird survey counting sheet. Right on cue, we saw a swarm of kererū, being chased by a kahu harrier hawk! Lots of little brown blobby birds flew past, which were hard to ID, but we learnt that with time, identifying them gets easier.

One of the best ways to learn, is playing Birdle. It’s like wordle, but instead of getting 6 goes to guess a word, you get 6 goes to guess a birdcall!

Our next AKV 5-minute birdcount will be on Sunday 13 April 2025 at 10am.