Birding rally Geese and Swans – 2018 took place in "Central forest reserve" in Tver region on 4th-6th May.
This special event was organized by the NGO “Birds and People” at the national park in Tver region. The main objective of 9 teams (42 people) from Moscow and Tver region, who came to the competition, was to photograph as many species of birds and identify them correctly as they could.
The route of the Rally covered different parts of the park, where participants could find a variety of birds. Photographing birds is quite difficult – the “model” carefully hides in the trees and bushes and flies at the slightest human movement. However, the results were very impressive.
Such competitions are very popular abroad, but, unfortunately, not yet common in our country. Our birding rally has once again shown that this activity can and should be developed and promoted. Firstly, this is a great active family holiday in the fresh air; secondly, birding helps the layman to learn more about the fauna of birds, as well as working with the bird guides, and thirdly, it is a kind of scientific research, since it allows to identify the distribution of habitats of birds, the frequency of their occurrence, and even, as in this case, identify new species for the region.