Take a break from watch­ing polls and start watch­ing birds with The Great Ker­erū Count. Forest & Bird have teamed up with loc­al com­pany Thun­dermaps to cre­ate an easy way for all of us to track these mag­ni­fi­cent yet near-threatened nat­ive pigeons, using the Thun­dermaps smart­phone apps or web applic­a­tion.

The great kereru count

Ker­erū are vital to the health of our forests, because they’re big enough to swal­low and spread the seeds of tawa, miro, and oth­er trees. They’re rel­at­ively com­mon around the West­ern hills of Wel­ling­ton, and in the Hutt Val­ley, but it would be great to see them spread­ing east across the city. Start­ing on Monday, for a two week peri­od you’ll be able to con­trib­ute to our under­stand­ing of their dis­tri­bu­tion and habits by adding your obser­va­tions and pho­tos.