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Re Keith
and Lindsay Fishers email (via Russell ) regarding Cairns
Esplanade.
I have two ideas for you as
follows:
1)
COUNTING NUMBERS OF BIRDERS VISITING THE ESPLANADE
Bushwalkers when walking into more remote areas are requested to fill in a
"visitors log" book in which they put in some relevant details about their trip:
party size, destination and route. This serves two purposes firstly the national
parks can keep a tally of the numbers using the trail and they also have
vital information if the party is delayed or lost. The book is kept in a covered
wooden box attached to a stand about chest height and placed in a prominent
position.
Although I am not
familiar with the Cairns Esplanade I am sure a similar system could be
used successfully there. You could signpost the logbook
as BIRDWATCHERS LOGBOOK PLEASE FILL IN or something
similar. I suggest you would need to get a sturdy book and secure several
pens/pencils to the book so they don't go walkabout. Likewise you may want to
remove or copy the completed pages at regular intervals in case the book
dissappears. This isn't a problem in remoter bush areas but it may be with
vandals or those who don't have the same interests as yours.The details required
could be the date, number of people and place of origin including country of
origin.
In
addition you could even have a special sheet/section for people to list the
birds they have seen there that day. This would be of particular interest
to birders coming after them. However you would need to be very careful
not to frighten off the casual birder by requesting too much detailed
information and thus defeating your number counting objective.
2) CREATING INTEREST IN BIRDS IN AN AREA. (Also
for children)
Another idea that I have seen used successfully in other spheres and that can
create much interest for birders and non birders alike. This could be used
for the Esplanade but also in national parks or other birding areas
also.
You have
a blackboard or white board kept in a prominent position for the public to see
and during the day people write down on the board the birds they have seen ( and
possibly even where they have seen them). Although you will probably want
to confine it to the more unusual sightings
as there won't be enough room on the board to list all
birds. ( However you could have an A4 sheet with the names of the
common birds on it and people could tick these off ). Kids would probably get a
real buzz by writing their birds on the board.
The advantages are that birders can see what birds have been
seen that day and it also makes the general public very aware that there birds
in the area and of all the differant birds that are in that area.
Regards Charlie
Andrews
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