Now, this is a great event to be part of!  It's the yearly 'Garden Bird Survey'.  By surveying birds in our gardens, parks or school grounds, we can help Landcare Research, NatureWatch, TopFlite, Birds NZ and Forest & Bird, together, learn more about NZ's common and widespread birds as well as inform future conservation efforts.

The survey runs from now until Sunday 2nd July.  Just choose a day that suits you, grab a comfy seat and binoculars and look and listen in your garden for one hour.  For each species record the highest number seen at any one time (not the total seen over the hour).  

You can find out more details on their website and record your data on the online form.  There are identification and tally sheets as well. 

In our home garden in Horsham Downs, Hamilton we recorded:
4 x fantail
5 x greenfinch
2 x myna
1 x song thrush
2 x starling
2 x tui
12 x welcome swallows
1 x Kaka - we couldn't believe it when we saw it in our tree!