Black-billed Gull/Tarāpuka | Larus bulleri © Dan Burgin / Macaulay Library
Over the next five years, the goal is to record the presence of all bird species that occur within each square, during each of the four seasons.
Ideally, you’ll need to visit each major habitat type within a square, to have a good chance of detecting all of the bird species present in a grid square. What’s more is that during the course of the year, different species may well be present at different times, or in higher numbers, or even more easily detected.
The aim is to carry out a complete survey of each grid square at least once during each season (summer, autumn, winter and spring), over the five-year period (1st June 2019 to 1st June 2024).
This means that there is a collective ‘Summer’, ‘Autumn’, ‘Winter’ and ‘Spring effort for each square. You will see on the dropdown menu titled ‘Date’ on the NZ Bird Atlas Effort Map, each of these four seasons and the effort so far. We really encourage you all to be looking at this and seeing where more effort is needed.
Ultimately it gives us all an even greater drive to get out during the year, especially those cold darker winter days!