12 November 2024 | Kinder students from Lindisfarne North Primary School took to their school's backyard in search of birds this month.
Led by our Education Coordinator Bianca Burford, the students headed out to the Geilston Bay walking track below Lindisfarne North Primary School to observe and explore bird life.
Their mission was to explore the surrounding environment, and to observe and listen for birds. Using binoculars and their keen eyes, they discovered many different types of birds and recorded their observations.
Then they sat down with Bianca to talk about the common birds and habitats in our local area, and how we can help protect birds and their environment. To complete the workshop, the students undertook an activity which compared the shapes of bird feet and beaks.
The Kinders were enthusiastic about learning about local duck species and their characteristics and habitats with Bianca. Photo credit: Catherine Hocking.
Bianca read out parts of the book, Ducks of Tasmania, to the children and highlighted interesting facts about ducks and how they live in Tasmania.
Fun facts about birds
- Did you know birds have hollow bones so that they are light enough to fly?
- Some birds sleep with one eye open! Ducks have a single-brain sleeping pattern - half of their brain sleeps while the other half stays awake and active.
- Ducks have no teeth, instead, they have serrations (saw-like edges) that are located on their bills- these serrations allow birds to filter food out of the water.
Some samples of the bird observations
Feedback on the Birds in Backyards workshop
From Bianca:
"I had a great time watching out for birds and seeing the children take on the challenge of identifying all the different species that we saw this morning. The children were very good at describing beak shape, overall size and colour of each bird. They did a great job of listening for the bird calls and trying their best to mimic them.
We spoke about the importance of habitat and that all birds are specially suited to their own environment eg, water birds or forest birds. We spoke about the ways that we can look after the habitat and that it is important not to feed birds like the ducks bread. They are very good at finding their own food and we don't want to make them sick.
We were so lucky with both groups to see so many species including: Pacific black duck, wrens, silver gulls, grebes, native hens, wattle birds, noisy minors, little pied cormorants, sulphur crested cockatoos, and an egret!"
The teacher provided feedback, saying the Kinder children had a great time, and in fact, they have been bird watching in the school grounds since the visit from Landcare Tasmania.
We are grateful to the students, teachers and parent volunteers from Lindisfarne North Primary School who helped to make the Birds in Backyard workshop a resounding success!
Teachers - watch our website for our 2025 school workshop program updates.
This workshop was delivered as part of the Landcare Tasmania Education Program.
