An ornithologist's musings: How birdwatching can preserve our environment

Birdwatching is a hobby with many therapeutic benefits and can even help memory preservation and reduce the risk of dementia.

Ornithologist and retired pediatrician Geoff Shannon developed a love for birdwatching at a young age.

Mr Shannon grew up in the United Kingdom and said it was his father that fostered this love of birding; his father took photographs for famous British ornithologist Peter Scott.

"I got involved with this very serious birding early on," Mr Shannon said.

"And so I got a very good education, right back in preteen years."

He was recently featured in Australian Geographic for spotting a pair of endangered Australasian bitterns with four chicks at the Lagoon of Islands in Tasmania's Central Highlands.

Mr Shannon will be the latest guest speaker at the John Skemp Memorial Lecture, where he will talk about how to turn your observations into information useful to the preservation of our natural environment - sometimes referred to as citizen science.

"I suppose it was stimulated by the fact that we're seeing that the numbers of bush birds are dropping, some of them quite considerably," he said.

"There is lots of information in notebooks [and when] somebody comes to the end of their life, and their children are not interested in naturalism, they throw out this invaluable data."

Mr Shannon said there needs to be more science regarding the decline of bird numbers, with the issue that this relies on long-term datasets.

"Once you've got the information that things are disappearing, then you've got more evidence to put to people saying, 'look, we've got to do better'."

"I thought [the lecture] would make more people observe and get them to record what they see themselves, but also in a format that is available to other people," he said.

The annual lecture is hosted by the Launceston Field Naturalists Club (LFNC) in honour of John Skemp, who entrusted his Myrtle Bank property to the LFNC upon his death in 1966.

Mr Shannon's talk will be held Tuesday May 7, 7.30pm at Briggs Hall, Scotch Oakburn College Campus.