Results of garden bird survey, July 2007
Silvereye
Silvereye most abundant species
The first nationwide garden bird survey in New Zealand took place between 14 and 22 July 2007. Participants spent one hour watching birds in their home gardens, local parks, or school grounds, recording the highest number o f individuals of each species seen at once. A total of 2064 valid survey forms were returned. Of these, 1954 were from home gardens, 78 from parks, and 32 from school grounds (including kindergartens and early childhood centres).
The silvereye was the species recorded in the greatest numbers in home gardens in 2007 (average 10.2 per garden). The house sparrow (average 9.4 per garden) was a close second, starling (3.1 per garden) a distant third, and blackbird (2.7 per garden) fourth. However, blackbird was the most widely distributed species, being present in 90% of home gardens, followed by house sparrow in 86%, silvereye in 81%, and starling in 61%.
Results from parks and school grounds were generally similar to home gardens, but there were more of some species such as ducks, gulls, rock pigeons, blackbirds, and song thrushes, and fewer of other species such as silvereyes and dunnocks.
Large number of species found
In total, 89 species of birds were detected: 86 in home gardens, 49 in parks, and 32 in school grounds. The number of species detected in home gardens was surprisingly large. However, home gardens ranged from truly urban to rural and seaside. Some people living in the country considered the surrounding farm paddocks as part of their garden and recorded species such as feral goose, wild turkey, pheasant, brown quail, and tufted guineafowl. Others considered the surrounding bush as part of their garden and recorded species such as falcon, red-crowned kakariki, rifleman, robin, tomtit, whitehead, and saddleback. Some people living on the coast overlooking the sea considered the sea as part of their garden and recorded species such as white-faced storm petrel, cape pigeon, gannet, white-fronted tern, black-fronted tern, Caspian tern, black-billed gull, wrybill, and various shags and herons.
Only 20 species were recorded in more than 10% of the surveys. On average, there were 7.6 species per home garden, 8.9 species per park, and 6.5 species per school ground. One participant recorded 24 species and two participants none during their one hour of observation.
