WHAT birds are in your backyard?

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Rainbow lorikeets, blue masked honeyeaters or the superb fairy wren perhaps?

The Aussie Backyard Bird Count is on this week as part of National Bird Week and you can take part by counting all the variety of birds in your backyard.

The Aussie Backyard Bird Count is an activity for all-ages that involves observing and counting the birds that live near you – whether that’s in your garden, the local park, a beach or even your town centre.

BirdLife Australia, the nation’s peak independent bird conservation organisation, wants you to count birds within a 20 minute period and help them develop an understanding of local birds, whilst getting to know the wildlife on your doorstep.

To complete the Aussie Backyard Bird Count, spend 20 minutes standing or sitting in one spot and noting down the birds that you see.

You don’t even need to have a backyard.

You can literally count birds anywhere – as long as you are in Australia.

Consider your ‘backyard’ as any place you feel at home and you can see birds.

You will need to count the number of each species you spot within the 20 minute period.

For example, you might see 4 Australian Magpies, 2 Rainbow Lorikeets and a Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo.

If you can identify birds by their calls, please include these in your count, but if you aren’t sure of a bird without seeing it, please exclude it rather than making a guess.

You can submit the data online or via the app.

The Aussie Bird Count app has a handy field-guide to help you identify birds.

By participating in the Aussie Backyard Bird Count, you will be helping BirdLife Australia find out about the common species that live where people live.

This snapshot of Australian birds at the same time each year allows BirdLife Australia to look at the trends in our bird communities from year to year.

This is important because it’s these more common species that give us the best indication of the health of the Coffs Coast environment – think of birds as a barometer for nature!

By Sandra MOON