Wainui Beach School decided to participate in this year’s bird survey and teacher Ngaire Rhodes said the decision tied in with the schools ‘‘Actions Speak Louder Than Words’’ focus.
“I thought this was a great way to link into our “action” focus by spending an hour of our time to complete the survey.
“We followed the New Zealand Bird website and learned lots about bird life in our gardens and how to identify them.
“As we were counting outside yesterday, we also completed some observational drawings of trees and leaves around our school field.
“The most common bird at our school is the house sparrow and we also spied some blackbirds, red-billed gulls and a myna.
“It’s great education for us all and some kids are hoping to complete the survey this week at their own homes,” she said.
Manaaki Whenua researchers have condensed this large information base into simple but useful metrics — providing insights into how garden bird counts have changed from local to national scales.
This year’s report shows counts of New Zealand’s most common native garden bird, the silvereye (also known as ‘waxeye’ or tauhou) are still declining.
Counts have almost halved in gardens since the survey began, which researchers say could be a warning sign something is changing for the species.
New Zealand Garden Bird Survey founder and Manaaki Whenua Research Associate Dr Eric Spurr said declines in certain species was widespread.
“The silvereye has declined by 43 percent nationally.
“Rapid declines in this species’ counts were detected in Southland, Otago, West Coast, Nelson, Wellington and Gisborne regions.
“We don’t yet fully understand what is driving these changes but increasingly warmer winters may mean silvereyes are less likely to come into gardens in search of food.
“They come more in cold winters when there’s snow on the hills,” he said.
On the other hand, a cautiously positive picture is emerging for tui, which could be the result of improved predator control in urban and rural landscapes.
“Among native species, tui and possibly kereru counts have shown a shallow increase over the 11 years, while fantail and bellbird have remained at relatively similar levels,” said Dr Spurr.
Of the introduced species, only the greenfinch has increased (almost doubled) since 2007.
Six of the most common species in our gardens (blackbird, dunnock, chaffinch, goldfinch, song thrush and starling) have experienced shallow to moderate declines (10–31 percent over 11 years).
Dr Macleod said these findings needed to be taken seriously.
“It might be tempting to dismiss these declines as unimportant because these species were all introduced to New Zealand from Europe.
“However, these birds are signalling change in our urban and rural environments that we need to better understand.
“Without the New Zealand Garden Bird Survey, and the thousands of volunteers who have participated in it, these changes would have gone undocumented,” she said.
