SCLC Bournda Bird Olympics
Bournda EEC,
in association with the Sapphire Coast Learning Community,
proudly presents the
BOURNDA BIRD OLYMPICS
Thursday 24th October 2024
(Week 2, Term 4)
at Potoroo Palace Animal Sanctuary and Education Centre
Stage 2, 3 and 4 students – school teams of 4-6 students
This is your chance to achieve Bird Olympics glory in 2024!
All Sapphire Coast Learning Community Schools are invited to “send” their team of 4-6 students to compete on Thursday the 24th October 2024. The event is generously supported by the Far South Coast Birdwatchers and the event will be hosted live from the fabulous native animal sanctuary Potoroo Palace
Events on the day will include:
Bird Identification – Students will be shown pictures of local birds and must correctly name them to get the “worm”.
Identifying Bird Calls – The team that can correctly identify the greatest number of calls, will be puffin’ out their chests with pride.
Bird Brains -A research challenge task that will get the ornithological whiz kids working hard. Full marks will be an impeccable result!
The Noble Art of Bird Calling – students do their best impression of the call of a named species of bird and re-live the glories of past bird calling champions!
Individual and team prizes will be awarded and the school with the highest combined score will fly home with the Jack Lynch Memorial Trophy. We are hopeful that our team of judges will again include some of the original participants from the Gould League competitions of the 50s and 60s.
The best individual performance will be given the honour of holding aloft the Lisa Freedman Perpetual Trophy for The Champion Bird Caller. The late Mrs Freedman, former Principal of Tathra Public School, was a great supporter of the Bird Olympics and was renowned for her very convincing kookaburra impression. In her feedback for the first Bird Olympics in 2017 Lisa wrote,
“I could not attend the Bird Olympics, just arranged for students to attend. The students returned very excited and full of positive feedback, so you must have done a great job! They are all keen to be chosen to attend next year and many other students are too. I really hope that this will continue as an annual event.”
This is no event for the chicken-hearted and foul play will not be tolerated. The organisers would be chuffed if you could enter a team. It’s a cheap event; admission is free and there will be no bill. Register your expression of interest via the contact form below and we will send you an information pack.
Read all about previous events!
It caused a little bit of excitement in our neck of the woods when the BBC World Service picked up the ABC South East NSW story by Vanessa Milton and ran it for an estimated audience of over 100 million!
Then, in 2022 our champion bird caller Alisha, from Bega Valley Public School, was special guest reporter for the ABC Behind the News.
You can read more about the history of this popular event here!