New Zealand Garden Bird Survey – a context for learning

Aotearoa New Zealand is famous for its quirky native birds. Ngā manu, their unique adaptations and the threats they face are common classroom topics. But what about the birds we are likely to encounter in our home or school gardens? What do we know about them and what can they tell us?

Rights: Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research

Te Tatauranga o ngā Manu Māra o Aotearoa – The New Zealand Garden Bird Survey

Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research runs an annual survey of garden birds. The data collected from citizen scientists helps researchers understand how birds are coping with environmental challenges

Te Tatauranga o ngā Manu Māra o Aotearoa – The New Zealand Garden Bird Survey is a citizen science project that has been running since 2007. It occurs in late June when some of our native forest birds come to our gardens looking for food and shelter.

Participants use illustrated tally sheets in te reo Māori or English to record birds in their local area. Schools can choose to do the survey in 10-minute rotations over the span of an hour using a simplified tally sheet (10 birds) or do the standard survey monitoring up to 22 bird species over 60 minutes.

The survey is organised by Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research. Scientists take the substantial amount of collected data, run it through their supercomputers and use it to create easy-to-read infographics for the public to use. The information also helps experts build long-term biodiversity datasets to see how birds are coping with environmental challenges. Our webinar with researchers Dr Angela Brandt and Dr Gradon Diprose discusses the importance of the survey and what happens to the results.

Birds: Structure, function and adaptation

This interactive explores the science concepts that underpin knowledge about birds’ physical features and how they help birds live in their environment.

Making use of local encounters

Taking the time to observe the birds who visit our shared spaces provides authentic learning opportunities. Taking part in the survey is an ideal context for:

• exploring key science concepts – habitats, adaptations and classification
• developing science capabilities – gather and interpret data, critique evidence and interpret representations
• exploring aspects about how science works – data collection and reliability
• taking action – we cannot look after our birds unless we know what’s in our local area.

Suddenly you realise your garden is a hotspot for dining out, romance, squabbling – quite human behaviours. If these were your neighbours, you’d introduce yourselves, and that starts with names.

Te Radar, Garden Bird Survey Have you got what it takes? video series

Resources to support learning – Garden Bird Survey

The New Zealand Garden Bird Survey website has numerous resources. Resources for children & teachers has instructional videos for using the survey with years 1–8 and for years 9 and up, downloadable full-colour resources in te reo Māori and English, ideas on how and where to do the survey and children’s activities – a colouring competition, bird mask templates and bird colouring sheets.

This section also features two videos – How big is that bird? The Chocolate Fish Index and Where do birds feed? Gardens are like layer cakes – that help ākonga understand bird sizes and habitats. Both are examples of how models can be used to explain an idea or concept.

Bird identification tools provide images, text and bird calls. Survey results include key findings from annual surveys and infographics about increases and declines of native and introduced species over 5-year and 10-year periods.

Rights: Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research

Garden birds – bilingual names

A poster for the New Zealand Garden Bird Survey with the names of common birds in te reo Māori and English.

Download a PDF version here.

Resources to support learning – Science Learning Hub Pokapū Akoranga Pūtaiao

The Hub also has an extensive range of resources.

For educators working in years 3–8, Birds in my backyard is a ready-to-use cross-curricular teaching resource. It’s an easy way to introduce and incorporate the Garden Bird Survey into your programme. The resource is available as a Word document that you can customise to meet learner needs.

These curations of Hub resources feature birds:

• Birds – collection with notes on how you might use the resources.
• Bringing back the birdsong – collection to support the Connected article Bringing back the birdsong.
• Conserving native birds – introduction – resources on a wide range of native manu.
• Building Science Concepts: Birds – big science ideas about birds and their structure, function and adaptations.
• Bird adaptations and identification – information to help hone your identification skills.
• If you are new to citizen science projects, the article Planning for your students to be citizen scientists has great advice for using online citizen science platforms like the Garden Bird Survey.

Rights: Public domain

Pīwakawaka – fantail

The pīwakawaka is a native bird that visits gardens to feed on insects. It is easily identifiable by its white eyebrows, fan-shaped tail and darting flight pattern.