Monthly Archives: May 2014

Birds, Garden

GARDEN BIRD SURVEY 2014

This year’s survey: 28 June – 6 July 2014

Anybody who can identify birds in their gardens can participate.

Instructions and survey forms will be available closer to the start date.

  • Spend just one hour watching birds in your garden and recording the highest number of each species you see or hear at one time.
  • Help us monitor distribution and detect population trends in garden birds.
  • Fun school activity that connects children with the outside environment.

Bird feeder bird bath  _BANNER FLYER1

 

Check out our great range of garden bird and wildlife related product at Creative Woodcraft “Bringing People Closer to Nature”

The garden bird survey is a citizen science project established to monitor the population trends of common garden birds in New Zealand. It attempts to answer the question, “Are garden bird populations increasing, decreasing, or remaining stable?”

New Zealand has a number of rare native bird species that are declining in number, but we do not know the population trends of our more common native or introduced birds. We hope that the annual garden bird survey will act as an early-warning system if currently common native species start declining. Several currently common native species occur in our gardens, including fantail (shown above), tui, bellbird, silvereye, grey warbler, and kereru (native pigeon).

Measuring the population trends of these species is an enormous task, which is why we need your help.

http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/science/plants-animals-fungi/animals/birds/garden-bird-surveys

Birds

NZ Bird Identification online course – FREE

Creative Woodcraft fully supports this great learning tool offered by Department of Conservation DOC.

What’s the course about?

The Bird Identification online course will help you identify the 10 New Zealand forest birds most commonly recorded during five minute bird counts. Learning about the appearance, calls, and habitat of the birds will give you more chance of accurately identifying these birds.

The 10 birds are the bellbird/korimako, silver eye, grey warbler, tomtit, chaffinch, fantail/pīwakawaka, blackbird, tūī, rifleman and New Zealand wood pigeon/kererū.

You can use the module in several different ways:

  • As an initial reference tool to learn about 10 New Zealand forest birds
  • As an ongoing resource to refresh your knowledge
  • As a resource to check your understanding

This is a free online course. It takes about 5–10 minutes per bird to complete.

Check out our great range of superior quality handcrafted Bird Feeders and Nesting Boxes.

Bird feeders nest boxes

 

Ladybirds
Garden, Insects

providing a home for beneficial insects

When an infestation of aphids, mealy bugs or other common garden pest appears in our gardens it is tempting to look for a quick fix such as a chemical spray.

But a better solution is to work towards a balance where nature is doing most of the work for us. Attracting beneficial insects is a major part of creating a balanced ecosystem in our gardens that does not require expensive and sometimes toxic chemicals.

A healthy garden is good for conservation because it can help increase numbers of native insects, lizards and birds.

“The main things to remember are to provide places for insects to live”

Buy a Insect Bug Hotel for your Garden from Creative Woodcraft

insect_bug_hotel_4 Insect Hotel Creative Woodcraft

Bats, Bees, Birds, Butterflies

The Hidden Beauty of Pollination

Check out our products that can help, support and encourage our all important garden pollinators

Support and encourage our pollinators… don’t take them for granted! “we are part of nature and we need to take care of it”

Check out this fantastic talk and beautiful footage by Louie Schwatzberg - a cinematographer, director and producer who captures breathtaking images celebrating the life of our wonderful pollinators.

The hidden beauty of pollination

The Hidden Beauty of Pollination

Creative Woodcraft ” Louie Schwartzberg couldn’t of said it better”