Jatimulyo village, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, September 2020—at least 15 members of the local community in Jatimulyo village, Yogyakarta were taught the basics of bird identification and bird monitoring techniques last month thanks to funding from the Oriental Bird Club.

Participants were all aged between 15 and 45 and local participants were joined by three volunteers from Yogyakarta State University.

The training included indoor sessions covering bird identification, field data recording, and monitoring techniques. It began with the basics of how to use binoculars and record locations using GPS together with a simple form for recording bird breeding activity. Participants were also introduced to some simple methods to estimate bird diversity and bird abundance using encounter rates.

The following day’s fieldwork took place in an agroforestry area near the village of Gunung Kelir where participants learned how to record birds along a transect and enter their observations into a record sheet. The participants particularly enjoyed getting to grips with using binoculars—some for the first time.