BirdLife Australia

I can't remember.

There was like 30 of us up there with BirdLife Australia and I think there was only two or three people that were... license to do the cannon netting yes it's like that was like the highest level of

yeah so under the australian bird and bat banding scheme in which we're all working um as a bander in australia there's different license types so first is your c class so it was basically where you're training under a fully qualified a class bander um you could also be an r class so you're not fully qualified as as a a class but you are fully qualified to work on one particular group or one particular species.

So I had my R class for a while while I was just working on fairy terns where, you know, I could go and do my research and work on them.

So it was in 2018 and it had been many, many years since fairy terns had been successfully breeding in Mandurah.

um for years mandra was historically really important you know probably for decades it was really really important for fairy turns at the mouth of the peel harvey estuary that the true mouth before the cut um so fairy turns would regularly nest there and one of the reasons that they nested estuary mouths is because estuaries are productive so there's lots of prey anyway so then they did the marina development and that removed the habitat for the fairy terns but the fairy terns were often nesting on vacant blocks so A few people got together, a few organisations.

There was BirdLife Australia, there was the Conservation Council of Western Australia, the local council and the Peel Harvey Catchment Council and they wanted to create a space for the fairy turns.

So they created the Mandra Fairy Turn Sanctuary.

Have you taken part in the Aussie Bird Count or are you just in general a bird lover, a bird watcher? Tell me who you've been spotting out there with feathers on.

With me to chat about it is Dr. Christina Zdenek, a conservation biologist at BirdLife Australia who coordinates their urban birds program.

Christina, personally, how many birds have you counted?

Well, for the Aussie bird count, I imagine you're asking? Yeah, sure.

This is Life Matters on ABC Radio National.

I'm Tegan Taylor.

I'm with Dr. Christina Zdenek from BirdLife Australia because the Aussie Bird Count is on this week.

We're talking about bird watching.

Tell me who you've been spotting out there with feathers on.

With me to chat about it is Dr. Christina Zdenek, a conservation biologist at BirdLife Australia who coordinates their Urban Birds program.

Christina, personally, how many birds have you counted?

Well, for the Aussie bird count, I imagine you're asking? Yeah, sure.

This is Life Matters on ABC Radio National.

I'm Tegan Taylor.

I'm with Dr. Christina Zdenek from BirdLife Australia because the Aussie Bird Count is on this week.

We're talking about bird watching.

Aussie Bird Count is on this week.

Australia's fantastic citizen science project, which is run by BirdLife Australia.

Citizen science meaning you don't need to have a degree in science or be paid to do science to contribute to meaningful scientific research.

And BirdLife Australia, Australia's premier organisation, that cares about birds, that cares about bird watchers, is running The Great Bird Count.

So on today's show, I have got two guests coming in to talk about our beautiful birds, the situations that they're in at the moment, and how we can help.

So first cape off the rank today is Sarah Riding, who is an evolutionary ecologist at Deakin University.

And there's a methodology, right? There is a process that allows people to take these observations in a way that's scientifically valuable.

What's the process?