Impressive bird calls showcased at Bournda Bird Olympics with Bega Valley primary schools raven about bird calling

The lost art of bird calling was celebrated on Tuesday, October 18 by students who finally got the chance to perform their bird calls and learn more about Far South Coast birds and protection efforts.

The students were joined by bird calling champions of yesteryear Margaret Liston, Robert Whiter, and Bruce Chapman who competed in a similar competition in the 50s started by former Merimbula Public School principal Jack Lynch.

The elders recalled how the children at their small bush primary school (as it was then) were obsessed with animals - climbing trees to retrieve eggs they would deyolk and showcase in boxes.

Robert, who competed in the 53' and 54' teams, recalled how the youngsters would climb up and put the eggs in their mouth to get them back down again safely.

"And 9 times out of 10 you would get to the bottom without a mouthful of egg," he said.

"All of us had them. Jimmy Burton might have had two magpies and I had some sort of egg he didn't have and we all used to swap these around," he said.

Bruce recalled he and other boys climbing trees to take baby possums from their dens. The children would hand-rear the wildlife and take the creatures to school in their pockets to "show off" to their peers.

Principal Lynch wanted to find a way to stop the children from taking eggs and animals from nests and teach them about conservation efforts, and so the bird call competition was born. The competition used to be held at Twyford Hall in Merimbula and would draw primary schools from the shire.

These days the elders judge the annual competition, which was reborn after it fell out of fashion during the 60s. Robert made the trophy for the revitalised event in 2017, and it has been given out to the school with the most impressive bird calls ever since.

The elders said this year the students had really diversified their bird calls to an array of native species, with students in the past sometimes opting to produce sounds from domesticated birds.

Some of the birds replicated this year included the barking owl, wedge-tail shearwater, pigeon, king parrot, Australian raven, kookaburra, powerful owl, turtle dove, and the southern bookook.

The overall winner of the bird calling competition was Bega Valley Public School year 6 student Alisha Saye, who perfectly mimicked a king parrot, and scored herself a plaque on the trophy and a family pass to Potoroo Palace.

The winning school of the day who scored the most points across the various activities, including in the bird call competition, was Wolumla Primary School.

Wolumla students cried with glee on finding out they had won the coveted trophy, the last time the school took out the trophy was in 2019. Students were also awarded passes to Potoroo Palace.

Elder Margaret said the enthusiasm of the Wolumla students when answering a series of 10 questions on Australian native was "incredible".

"I think it's lovely to see them able to sit still, listen, participate and be so interested," she said.

Organiser Doug Reckord of the Bournda Environmental Education Centre said the full day of bird activities provided an opportunity for students to connect with their feathered friends.

"The aspiration of all of this is that the kids can come back with a passion about birds and a lot of them already have that, we want that to continue on with bird watching," he said.

Far South Coast Birdwatchers also donated a free copy of their local bird watching bird to each of the students involved.

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