Bird Identification Workshop - 16-17 October 2018
On Tuesday 16 and Wednesday 17 October an enthusiastic group were welcomed to the Education Centre by tutor Peter Handford. Environment Southland’s Ali Meade had arranged for Peter to come down from Nelson to tutor this national course about 5 Minute Bird Counts. It was a combination of learning in the education centre – presentations and computer bird calls and identification modules and then putting the learning into practice in the field. I think at the end we all appreciated the skill involved in the bird counts, the rigor with which the technique is applied, the skill involved in identifying the calls and the accurate recording of the data. When in the bush it is the calls rather than the sighting of the birds which is most important. Five minutes is quite a long time when you are concentrating hard on identifying through sight and sound (calls and flight noise) from different directions and trying to establish the number of birds calling from each direction. Thanks Peter for your information, encouragement and good humour!
Posted: 24 October 2018