Putrajaya Bird Race 2019

A total of about 300 participants took part in the recent Putrajaya Bird Race 2019 (PBR2019) which was held at the Putrajaya Wetlands , Precinct 13, Putrajaya..

The flag off was officiated by the Vice President of the Landscape and Parks Department of the Putrajaya Corporation, The Honorable Datuk Lar Haji Baharuddin Bin Aziz, along with the Corporate Communications Director of the Putrajaya Corporation, the Honorable Tengku Aina binti Tengku Ismail Shah..

When I first heard about the bird race, I was wondering what the Bird race was all about... Were we suppose to be chasing birds somewhere or were we suppose to carry a bird and run... And somehow the thought of either one of these options did not seem right and would probably anger animal activists and such...

So we finally found out at the venue itself... The Putrajaya Bird Race is an observation activity... Participants are suppose to observe and record the species of birds they can spot in the designated areas  at an allocated time frame...

This first of its kind event was an effort by the Putrajaya Corporation to promote Putrajaya as an Eco tourism destination as  a destination for urban birding in Malaysia in conjunction with Visit Malaysia 2020..

This program which is done in collaboration with Nature Educational Society (NEST) is also to introduce the various different kind of bird species that can be found in Putrajaya as well as to inculcate the importance of protecting our nature...

There were 3 different categories which was the open category, the school category and the government agencies.. Each group consisted of 3 people, one whose duty is to observe, another who will use binoculars to search and identify the bird species and the last participant who will record all findings in the report book given...

The contest involved 8 check points in 3 different areas which were the Wetlands, the Botanical Gardens and the Nature Forest or Taman Rimba Alam...

The team that identified the most species of birds was selected the winner...

There were a host of programs and activities such as bird photography contest as well as sharings, backyard buddy workshops, bird bath demo workshops, bird feed and bird house workshops, photography talk, bird story telling, origami workshops, traditional games, traditional archery as well as  face painting and sand art....

There were also interesting competitions like paper planes flying... Guessing the Bird Song, Imitating bird sounds and doodle colouring contests....

Putrajaya is a pretty well planned city that excels in balancing the Ecosystem if the city with nature with an attractive variety of flora and fauna... It is said that there are about 202 species of birds from 3 different groups which can be found here out of the 796 species in Malaysia...