Hi Martin and Illawarra Birders Inc,
This is a fantastic venture. Sincere congratulations.
I have taught ‘Know Your Local Species’ workshops in schools, and used the local council’s general wildlife identification brochures. While useful as an overview of wildlife to start the discussion, they didn’t serve a really useful purpose. What the kids wanted was birds. I ended up creating a Powerpoint of commonly seen local birds from Damian’s (Kelly) photographs.
The workshop included an hour or so birding, and the birds sighted were rarely those on the council brochure. I would have LOVED a brochure such as yours, and so would lots of the kids. I have no doubt that many of them would have gone on to try and tick all the boxes.
I do hope other birding groups follow your example (or let us know that they already have done so, if I am way out of touch and didn’t know about them).
cheers,
Lynne
> Illawarra Birders Inc have just released a brochure aimed at non-birdwatchers > to help them identify the local birdlife they are likely to see around them. > It features photographs of 70 birds and the intention is to encourage people > to develop an interest in birdwatching – each photograph includes an > all-important tick box! Our local Councils were very supportive and funded the > printing costs. > > Copies have been issued to local community groups, tourist offices and other > outlets. Council has advised “We’ve had great feedback about your bird > brochure, everyone has found it really useful and I’ve been getting lots of > requests for them, they’re running out the door downstairs”. > > Copies have also been sent to all local schools, whose response has been very > encouraging, eg “Thanks for the copy of the bird brochure. It’s a terrific > resource for the community to help ID their local bird. Here at Corrimal High > it has been received with great interest by the science staff and we would > like to get a class set plus teacher’s copies if possible. We will laminate a > couple as well for classroom use.” > > The brochure supplements the ‘bird route’ brochure issued here last year which > is of course aimed primarily at existing birdwatchers. We feel there is still > much to be done in raising the profile and popularity of birding, and hope > this brochure will help. > > I personally have just scaled a steep learning curve in desk top publishing, > design and digital media to get the brochure into print (not to mention > expending a great deal of time); if there are any other clubs out there > interested in using any of the document (ie design, photos, text) as a free > template you are more than welcome to do so. Please contact me at > martinp@illawarrabirders.org for further details. A PDF copy of the brochure > can be viewed on our website at www.illawarrabirders.org (or I can mail you a > copy). > > Martin Potter > > Illawarra Birders Inc.
