Tomsk’s school students identified 22 bird species at a birding tournament

5 july 2022

The first prize went to the team that took the name of Khraniteli Lesa (The Keepers of the Forest), representing Tomsk District’s Zorkaltsevo School. Its members photographed 12 bird species and correctly identified 10 of them. The second place was taken by Druzya Prirody (Nature’s Friends), a team made up of students of Tomsk District’s Semiluzhenskaya School who managed to correctly identify seven out of nine birds captured on camera. The "bronze" was awarded to the Edelweiss team from Tomsk District’s Verkhneketsky Forestry whose members were able to recognize all six bird species out of the six they had photographed.

To sum up the outcome of this birding contest: excellent results, top-notch performance, and a great level of engagement. The very first citywide tournament was also joined by the students of the Tomsk Forestry College. All in all, participating teams managed to identify 22 species of birds, Elena Snezhko, chief expert, head of the Formula for Good Deeds social investment program, commented.

The 12 participating teams were given two hours to spot and photograph birds, only to spend even more time doing their homework and trying to identify the species the birds represented. Prior to opening the contest, Sergey Gashkov, Department Head at Tomsk State University’s Zoological Museum briefed the participants on how to properly interact with birds and avoid harming them during the tournament. The contest’s route traversed the grounds of the Camp Garden.

The lenses of the contestants’ cameras caught several bird species, including Anseriformes, Falconiformes, Columbiformes, Charadriiformes, and Passeriformes such as a common merganser, a black kite, a Eurasian hobby, a sand martin, a blue throat, a common chaffinch, a European pied flycatcher, and many more.