Australia has a massively diverse range of wildlife, including some amazing bird life. Their population across Australia gives BirdLife Australia, an independent, not-for-profit bird conservation organisation an idea of the state of our environment and every year they ask for help from the public to count the birds in their area – and it starts this week.
It’s simple to participate, simply sit in the backyard for 20 minutes and count the birds, noting the type of birds you see and then either submit it via the website, or (and here’s the Android part) download the app which will let you submit from there and help you identify the birds you see.
The annual count in October co-incides with both the start of Spring, a season the BirdLife Australia team says that birds ‘are more lively and visible’, as well as with National Bird Week.
The count runs from October 22nd to October 28th this year and if nothing else it gives you 20 minutes of solitude sitting in your yard – or if you don’t have a yard you can choose to do your count in a local park, school yard or another of your favourite outdoor spaces.
You can download the app from Google Play, or the iOS app store to start up, and if you’re lucky you could win a pair of Swarovski Optik EL 10×32 Binoculars – not a bad prize for any budding ornithologists out there.
Well done for posting this. There’s no way I would ever have heard of it if it wasn’t for you guys!