Last week it was the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust's Big Farmland Bird Count, which started five years ago; now about 1000 farms around the UK take half an hour to participate. Similarly in January half a million people took part in the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch. These are exciting citizen science initiatives, engaging people with birds that surround them every day at home and work, and involving them in data collection that is potentially very valuable to conservationists.
For the fifth February running we walk round the same two fields at Broadwell on the Oxfordshire/Gloucestershire border. I am joined by Doug, the new farm manager, and Annabel, one of the owners. The fields are typical of the area, one arable and one pasture, bordered by the village, a lane, a stream and an old fishpond, with mature hedges and a game strip. I shut my eyes and call out what I can hear-greenfinches on song flight, a chaffinch by the pond, a couple of robins and a dunnock, a mewing buzzard, rooks at their nests and jackdaws around the church tower. Annabel has logged seven species on her clipboard before we see a bird. As usual we choose a time when the forecast is mostly clear, but soon the wind gets up, the sky darkens, hoods go up and we are in the middle of the day's only squall. As we reach the game strip birds are sheltering silently, and the next few minutes of our half hour produce only a few wind-blown rooks and a blackbird cackling its alarm. It soon blows over and small groups of linnets, chaffinches and yellowhammers spurt up into the hedge in front of us. A couple of egrets fly into the grass field, and a red kite slowly flies across it; now common birds, thirty years ago scarcely any farm in the country would have hosted either. The sun peeps through and skylarks start to sing - like many specialist farmland birds their fortunes have gone the other way.
For the fifth February running we walk round the same two fields at Broadwell on the Oxfordshire/Gloucestershire border. I am joined by Doug, the new farm manager, and Annabel, one of the owners. The fields are typical of the area, one arable and one pasture, bordered by the village, a lane, a stream and an old fishpond, with mature hedges and a game strip. I shut my eyes and call out what I can hear-greenfinches on song flight, a chaffinch by the pond, a couple of robins and a dunnock, a mewing buzzard, rooks at their nests and jackdaws around the church tower. Annabel has logged seven species on her clipboard before we see a bird. As usual we choose a time when the forecast is mostly clear, but soon the wind gets up, the sky darkens, hoods go up and we are in the middle of the day's only squall. As we reach the game strip birds are sheltering silently, and the next few minutes of our half hour produce only a few wind-blown rooks and a blackbird cackling its alarm. It soon blows over and small groups of linnets, chaffinches and yellowhammers spurt up into the hedge in front of us. A couple of egrets fly into the grass field, and a red kite slowly flies across it; now common birds, thirty years ago scarcely any farm in the country would have hosted either. The sun peeps through and skylarks start to sing - like many specialist farmland birds their fortunes have gone the other way.
We record 32 species, exactly the same as last year. Compared with data for three previous years, constants include the month and the route walked, and the number of species recorded always hovers around 30. Variables include time of day, weather, and numbers and identity of birds seen; only 14 species appeared in all four years. This year bullfinches and greenfinches are up, but reed buntings are absent - two years ago there were 30. Strangely there are no pheasants or grey partridge, though a few days ago there were several near the feeders in the game strip. Perhaps it is the wind, and the data suggests we see more gamebirds when we count later in the day. The total number of species for the four years is 43. I can list at least another 17 that use the area in February which have not appeared on any of the counts-a walk here at dusk might produce three species of owl, and kingfishers flash past occasionally.
 | Do these inconsistencies make the exercise less valuable? I don't think so. New technology means that large-scale citizen science can often be more reliable than professional surveying, which comes with its own limitations, such as the availability of surveyors and the funds to pay them. |
If you like the idea of participating, the British Trust for Ornithology runs valuable volunteer surveys. These feed into E-bird, is a global project run by Cornell Lab of Ornithology that provides data for many conservation initiatives. You don't need to be perfect to contribute; the more data they have the easier it is to identify mistakes. And there is help: Cornell's free photo identification app Merlin produces extraordinary results even with European birds. Apps to identify bird vocalizations are some way behind-birds do not always sing identical songs so it's not like Shazam. Planet Birdsong is working to produce mobile based games that address this-we'll be carrying out more trials at The Wild Watch this spring.
RSS Feed
