Calling all New Zealanders - our garden birds need you!

Here's a fantastic reason to be in our gardens, local parks or school grounds and enjoy the peace with our birds.

Get the family involved (or not!) and take part in this year's NZ Garden Bird Survey.  Just select a survey location, and on one day between 27 June and 5 July find a comfortable spot and look and listen for birds for one hour. Record the highest number of each species observed, and submit your results.

The NZ Garden Bird Survey is vital because it tells us about the health of our environment. The annual survey is the country's longest running citizen science project. 

Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research has led this nationwide initiative since 2007.

How to take part

It’s important we have as many New Zealanders complete the survey as possible to get a full picture of what’s happening to our garden bird populations across the country.

Taking part is easy:

1. Select your garden, park, or school
2. Choose one day from June 27 and July 5
3. Look and listen for birds for ONE hour.
4. Record the HIGHEST number of a bird species observed at one time.
   
5. Submit your survey results online (closed for 2020)
   

Make recording bird counts easy:

• Print out the tally sheet or make your own.
• For bird survey areas with internet access, you can enter your results straight into the online survey form (closed for 2020).
  

NZ Garden Bird Survey Tally Sheet

Identifying birds

Need to polish up your bird identification skills?  

We’ve made identifying our birds easy with a collection of beautiful bird images, a list of key characteristics and bird sounds on our commonly seen birds.

Identification guide »

Bird sounds »

Check out our identification guide

Resources

Children's activities

Additional resources for schools and learning hubs, and tips for teachers wanting to run the survey for classes or groups.

Media & organisations

Resources to help you share the NZ Garden Bird Survey on your organisation’s community channels.

Bird quizzes

Test your identification skills, and your knowledge of Māori bird names – and challenge your friends!

Competition time!

To win one of four NZ Garden Bird prize packs, share how your family took part in the annual Garden Bird Survey.

Post a picture to your feed with the hashtag #NZGardenBirdSurvey for your chance to win (Instagram, Facebook or Twitter).

Winners will be drawn at random on 10th July 2020 and announced on the NZ Garden Bird Survey social channels.

Private page?
You can still enter! Sending a screenshot of your entry to @nzgardenbirds on Instagram.

Fabulous prize pack

State of NZ Garden Birds 2019 | Te āhua o ngā manu o te kāri i Aotearoa

2019 New Zealand Garden Bird Survey results

The New Zealand Garden Bird Survey acts as the ‘canary in the coalmine’ for our nation’s common garden bird species. It helps us understand the health of garden bird populations and the wider environment by showing how bird counts are changing across Aotearoa over two time-frames – 5 and 10 years. 

 Follow the commentary

Join the conversation

#NZGardenBirdSurvey

About the survey

Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research has proudly led this biodiversity study of urban and rural landscapes  since 2007. This survey is the only one of its kind that informs policy makers, scientists, bird enthusiasts and other organisations nationwide who have an interest in the state of our garden birds and their environment.  

The survey acts as the ‘canary in the coalmine’ for our nation’s garden birds. It’s an early warning system to highlight any health issues, as well as evidence that our birds are thriving. 

Using cutting-edge techniques, Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research monitors changes in bird populations over time by analysing a substantial number of bird counts gathered by New Zealanders from over 35,000 garden surveys, and distilling them into meaningful metrics. 

Thank you to our long-term supporters