As a child I used to collect I-SPY books like the one here –
These pocket sized soft cover books covered a vast range of subjects w
ith an illustration and a little info on each entry. The idea behind them was to encourage you to be observant about your surroundings and “spy” as many of the entries as possible. My parent’s often gifted them to us as it kept us occupied on long trips or in school holidays – long before i-pads and mobile phones of course ! My brother and I would compete to see who filled out their chosen book first.
I was reminded of this by a recent guest who told us that her kids had been asking her about some of the wild birds we have here, which they did not see in the city, so as there was a bird ID book in the villa she got them to look the birds up and make a list of all the ones they saw over the holiday. between them they got to 29 birds which is pretty impressive and the bonus was it kept them outdoors and engaged in their surroundings.
i think that whenever kids get the chance to engage with nature and wildlife it’s more likely that they will care about their fate and hopefully want to protect their future, which for many is at risk these days both from the changing climate and human interventions – all a good thing.
Below are some photos of local birds – some are resident and some like the Pacific Baza, and the Gang Gang Cockatoo are rarer visitors.
I have also listed all the birds we have seen here – can you spot as many?
If you want to try out this kind of I-SPY – ask us for an ID book and we can print out the list for you .
Wendy – manager at the Haven at Berry
Haven Birds List Continue reading “I-SPY Birds at the Haven”