Spotted any interesting birds in your garden lately? How about silvereye (tauhou) whose numbers have dropped in recent years, according to the State of NZ Garden Birds 2017 report?
Birds act as ‘backyard barometers’ – telling us about the health of the environment we live in. We should be listening.
Birds are signalling significant changes in our environment over the last 11 years, according to the State of NZ Garden Birds 2017 | Te Āhua o ngā Manu o te Kāri i Aotearoa 2017 report just released by Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research.
Using cutting-edge techniques, researchers have distilled a large information base – bird counts gathered by New Zealanders from over 31,000 garden surveys since 2007 – into simple but powerful metrics.
In Manawatū there are nearly half as many Tauhou as there used to be, though Tūī numbers have increased a little.
If you can spare an hour to watch your garden between 30 June and 8 July 2018 you could help with this year’s survey. It’s very easy, relaxing and enjoyable. Last year, just at the end of my hour, I saw a huge flock of maybe 60 geese fly up from around Lake Huritini.