Birds, various recent photographs

In our first year here we saw over 100 species in our garden or Jagun, the small nature reserve adjacent.

Birds are beautiful, interesting and barometers of environmental health.

I have just googled the phrase just written and found an ambitious project:
“Background: There is growing recognition that the inexorable decline of nature may have profound consequences for the lives of people and their economies through the loss of natural resources and the ecological services they provide. Birds can act as excellent sentinels, barometers or indicators of trends in the state of nature and of the sustainability of human land use and environmental health. Birds occur in all habitats, can reflect trends in other animals and plants, and can be sensitive to environmental change. A great deal of high quality data exists on birds and new data are relatively inexpensive to collect.”

“Birds are recognised as good indicators of environmental change and as useful proxies of wider changes in nature. The Wild Bird Index measures average population trends of a suite of representative wild birds as an indicator of the general health of the environment.”[i]

Scaly-breasted Lorikeet tapping its foot listening to a group of us Easter Saturday discussing starting a Valla Nature Stall at the markets to educate and inform.

And the Ospreys