Making garden birds count

The Aucklander

27 Jun, 2012 06:00 PM6 mins to read

Over the next week, rug up, find a seat in your garden and do your bit for science. The New Zealand Garden Bird Survey is about to start and the organiser is urging Aucklanders to get involved.

One man who's ready to go is Henderson resident John Staniland. When you enter his bush-smothered property it's clear someone here is a bird lover. There's a white wooden bird house beside the driveway, a car with the personalised plate NZ TUI and chaffinches eating seed on the lawn.

A long-time Forest and Bird member, Mr Staniland has been interested in birdlife since he was a child. He ran a local bird survey for years and now monitors birdlife in the Ark in the Park, a large predator-controlled conservation project within the Waitakere Ranges Regional Park.

Sometime in the next week, armed with his binoculars, he'll plant his deckchair in his preferred viewing spot and spend an hour collecting data.

He's done the survey three times, once from the grounds of the high school where he used to teach, and says he's got a good idea of what he'll encounter. "I expect to see tui and kereru, and I hope to hear grey warbler. Silvereye definitely, that'll be the most dominant, I'd say.

"Now if I'm lucky" - he pauses and leans forward with excitement - "just in the past few months we've heard the male tomtit singing in the bushes. That would be really special to hear that during the survey."

He'll also keep an eye out for sparrows, fantails, blackbirds and chaffinch. There may be eastern rosella, magpie and myna, and perhaps a carrier hawk will pass overhead.

His current listening is a CD of bird calls. "I know them all but I'm fine-tuning my ear. I'd encourage people who are interested in birds to get a CD, because understanding bird calls is more important than recognising them by sight. It not only identifies the bird, it also alerts you to its presence."

Mr Staniland feels the scientific aspect of the survey is important but says it's also a way to encourage people to learn the lesser-known species in their gardens. One bird he'd like to draw Aucklanders' attention to is the grey warbler.

"It's a delightful little bird which is more common than people realise and it has a call out of all proportion with its size. I like to think of it as the triangle of the orchestra. It's got that resonance."

The Garden Bird Survey is fondly referred to as a "hobby project" by Eric Spurr, the Cantabrian who created and launched it. The retired scientist still works occasionally as an ecological consultant and volunteers his time to co-ordinate the survey.

Mr Spurr's former employer, Landcare Research, supports the project, as do the Ornithological Society of New Zealand and the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society.

"I've always been interested in monitoring bird populations," says Mr Spurr, "and it has always been part of my job in some way."

Now in its sixth year, he says the national survey, based on a similar one in the United Kingdom, is filling a knowledge gap. "The Department of Conservation knows a lot about the population trends of our rare and endangered species, but not so much is known about the more common species."

Most importantly, the survey can act as an early warning system. "Bellbirds are relatively common at the moment but unless we keep tabs on their population we won't know if that is changing. Better to know if gradual decline is happening than to have to take drastic action to save a species that has reached very low numbers.

"The data will be useful for the scientific community but also for territorial authorities that have responsibilities for managing their local biodiversity."

Although it's too early to track long-term trends, Mr Spurr has already learned some interesting things.

"The most common birds in New Zealand gardens are the house sparrow and the silvereye, and both have shown population changes.

"We've seen an overall increase for the sparrows whereas the silvereyes seemed to decline in 2008-9, possibly as a result of bird flu.

"The population bounced back in 2010 but dropped again last year, and we think that was a result of an early, mild winter and they weren't needing to come into urban areas to feed."

This year Mr Spurr is urging more Aucklanders to join the bird-watching.

"Auckland has been a bit tardy in getting on board. It has about 30 per cent of New Zealand households but only contributes about 11 per cent of returned forms."

In the UK, where the survey has been running for more than 30 years, findings have alerted researchers to major declines in some species.

"After running it for 10-15 years we should notice whether there are any trends developing."

Mr Spurr emphasises two other important objectives.

"One is educational. I get a lot of comments from people saying they didn't realise they had so many birds in their garden, or that they used the survey to teach their children to identify some birds.

"Enjoyment is the other important thing. I hope people enjoy doing the survey."

WHAT'S A DUNNOCK?

Mr Spurr says one bird that's often misidentified is a dunnock, which can be mistaken for the common sparrow.

Check out a picture in our photogalley above or at http://tinyurl.com/birdtypes to be sure.

LOVE THAT DOVE

The Malay spotted dove was the ninth most common bird in Auckland last year but is rare or doesn't frequent other regions at all. Here's a picture in case you didn't know what it was.

MORE SURVEYS NEEDED

In 2007, about 2000 people completed the survey. This rose to 4000, although last year participants fell to 3500. Mr Spurr encourages people to enter their results directly on to the website.

The Garden Bird Survey needs to be done for one hour some time between June 30 and July 8.

For each bird, record the largest number seen or heard at any one time - not the total number over the hour.

Cut out and complete the survey form on page 16 of this week's Aucklander and post it in.