Hi All,
Following Ros Laundon lead in Queensland - it's Twitchathon time in Victoria!!!
To quote Susan Myers - yes, it's time to dust off those binos, polish up those
rusty bird identification skills, consult your birding friends to form a team
and get your entries in for the 2002 Twitchathon!
As you probably know, the Twitchathon is an annual event organised by the
Regional Groups of Birds Australia. Basically, it is a race to identify as many
species of bird anywhere in Victoria within a given time.
In Victoria, the Twitchathon raises money for bird conservation projects across
the State. In recent years money raised has been used to fund research projects
into our native Box-Ironbark forests, Malleefowl conservation, and habitat
restoration for Regent Honeyeaters. The Twitchathon also celebrates the arrival
of Spring in Victoria (and the start of daylight saving) and gives members and
friends a chance to spend time in our beautiful forests, wetlands, beaches,
grasslands and heaths looking at and listening to birds. Apart from raising
money to help protect Victoria's native birds, it's a great opportunity to
brush up on your bird identification skills and to see how many birds you can
find at your favourite locations. There are also prizes for the teams who
identify the most birds and those who raise the most money.
There are two events to the Twitchathon:
* The 24 hour event - In this event, teams do a lot of traveling to
cover as many habitat types as possible to find as many diurnal and nocturnal
species as they can within a 24-hour period. They get only a little sleep.
* The 8 hour event - In this slightly more sedate event, team try to
identify as many bird species as possible within an 8 hour period. This is
usually in the 8 hours before the BBQ at the end of the Twitchathon, but it can
be done the day before if you wish.
What happens at the end of the Twitchathon?
Entering is easy. Simply contact the Twitchathon organisers Susan Myers, Stuart
Dashper or Tim Dolby and we will provide you with an entry kit comprising the
rules, sponsorship forms and so on. Susan and Stuart can be contacted on (03)
9387 8734 or by email to Tim Dolby on (03) 9489 3830
or by email on
The Twitchathon will be held on the weekend of 26 and 27 October. The BBQ will
be on Sunday at 4.00 pm. Even if you're not entered in the event, feel free to
come along to the BBQ.
* Finally ONE of the most important questions for a lot of people is that they
would like to enter but they don't know anyone else who's interested. In these
circumstance we can help!! Simply contact Susan and she will put you in touch
with like-minded people. Also living away from metropolitan Melbourne is no
problem. Simply enter a local team (of two or three people), choose your own
finish line and phone or fax through your results to Birds Australia.
So for the benifit of avian conservation and the chance to have some fun get
involved!
Tim
Tim Dolby
Dept of Business and E-commerce
Swinburne University of Technology
Ph (03) 9214 6722
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
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