ON THE WING
You can’t keep an old birder down, and so it was during the last week of October when I took my binoculars and crutches up to the Waterworks Reserve to participate in the Aussie Backyard Bird Count.
No matter I was only six days out of hospital after undergoing total kneereplacement surgery — the birds and Australia’s army of birders demanded I do my bit to participate in the annual census of our feathered friends.
I wasn’t being quite as brave, or foolish, as it appeared. My notes from the hospital physiotherapist suggested I go for a short walk each day and this corresponded with the period of time specified to conduct the count — 20 minutes.
Earlier in the year, addressing several senior citizen clubs, I had said that birdwatching was an ideal activity for older Australians, not merely keeping them fit and alert but helping pensioners establish social contact, and now I was putting this observation to the test.
I didn’t have to wander far in the reserve to record a modest tally of birds. For the old or young, the Aussie Bird Count is a great way to connect with the birds in our backyards, no matter where a home “patch” happens to be — a garden, local park, a patch of forest, the beach, or on the main street of town.
Since BirdLife Australia launched the annual survey in 2014, the number of participants has risen from 9000 to more than 70,000. Unsurprisingly, the numbers of birds counted has also risen — from 850,000 to 3.2 million recorded this year, all clocked over the 20-minute period to keep surveys consistent.
After confinement in hospital and then in my bedroom for more than a week, it was good to drink in the sounds and smells of the reserve nestling under kunanyi/Mt Wellington. It’s only when we do not hear and see birds that we realise how important they are to our daily lives.
Birds might be pretty and sing sweet songs but that is not the only reason they spark human interest and fascination. They do so many things that we think of as important to being human. They build complex homes, they dance, they can talk, they problem-solve and make model parents.
The bird count each year tends to be dominated by city and suburban birds, simply because this where most Australians live. Very few native birds have been able to adapt to this alien environment, yet only two of the top 10 are introduced species — the house sparrow and the Indian myna. As for the others, they are an eclectic bunch, comprising parrots, honeyeaters, the magpie, silver gull (pictured) and welcome swallow. What unites them is they are adaptable and intelligent and can create a niche for themselves in mankind’s world.