Time to count up birds

THE timing of the Aussie Backyard Bird Count could not be better for Top End bird watchers and goose hunters to boot.

The online bird count kicks off on Monday and I hope plenty of Territory hunters join me seeing our favourite bird, the magpie goose, flying over our home, in the swamps while we are out hunting, in the mango orchards and on the parks and reserves of Darwin.

Over the eight years the Bird Count has been operating citizen scientists have recorded magpie geese as the most prolific bird sighted in the NT for six of those years.

Environment Minister and Drysdale MP Eva Lawler, who brought us this ridiculous three-goose limit this year, should note the abundance of our geese.

And it could not be easier to participate. People can do it via the app on their phone, or on their computer. It only takes 20 minutes for each survey and you can submit as many as you like over the week. It is a great addition to your daily walk or relaxation time during the day.

It is easy to sign up and submit your counts. Simply go to aussiebirdcount.org.au and register. You could win great prizes headed up by a pair of Swarovski Optik NL 8x32 binoculars.

I have found it to be fascinating seriously watching the geese. I can now identify large and small family groups by the size range of the birds within each group.

You can see the older parent birds, this year’s fledglings, along with last season’s yearlings together in one small flock. These are probably one single family over a couple of year’s breeding, still together before the young reach sexual maturity and pair off themselves to create another family group. I have been able to gauge the success of the annual breeding cycle from how many small and large family groups I sight over this one intense week of watching.

It has given me the skills to also apply that recognition to other days when I am purely hunting. I have also come to recognise many new species of birds in my areas and accurately identify them. The Aussie Bird Count phone app or even the computer-based website has plenty of tools to help the new bird watcher to identify the birds in this region.

Last year my personal count for geese was 15,336 over my house, in areas I was hunting and in my travels over that week. I submitted 19 surveys containing 23 separate species.

There is $500 cash up for grabs at the Frontier Carpet and Vinyl Simulated Field competition on Sunday at NTFGA from 8am.