Juanita Browne: How to get involved in the annual Garden Bird Survey
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Do you ever watch birds in your garden? Perhaps you enjoy observing their antics at your birdfeeder, bird bath or pond?
This winter, you could help BirdWatch Ireland monitor bird populations by doing a simple weekly count from the comfort of your home.
BirdWatch Ireland has been running this survey for more than 30 years and it has become a vital tool in revealing how various species are faring.
The Irish countryside has changed drastically in the past 50 years. Hedgerows have been removed, land drained, wetlands and bogs have been lost, and farmland has become more intensively managed with pesticides and fertilisers.
All of these changes have greatly impacted bird populations, squeezing available habitat and food sources into smaller and smaller pockets.
This has resulted in our two million Irish gardens becoming even more important spaces for birds.
Even a small garden may actually be a really valuable safe haven for wildlife in less hospitable surroundings.
Everyone — no matter how small your garden, or even if you just have a balcony or patio where you have visiting birds, your results still count to help take the temperature of how bird species are doing over the harsh winter months.
Whether your garden is rural or in a city centre (and whether you feed your birds or not), this survey benefits from including a wide variety of garden types and locations each year.
And it’s not just confined to domestic gardens — schools and businesses are also welcome to take part.
The Garden Bird Survey runs for 13 weeks from November 28 to the end of February. Your weekly bird tally can actually become a lovely discussion point for the classroom or the staff canteen.
Keep the recording form, notebook and a pen on a window sill, and Bob’s your uncle.
All you have to do is record, each week, the highest number of each bird species seen at one time.
Recording can be very relaxed as it doesn’t involve a big time commitment. Spending just a few minutes, a couple of times each day, observing your garden birds, should give you a good feel for the number and types of birds using your garden.
The survey focuses on any bird that uses your garden, for instance, you might see a blackbird or robin on the ground, picking through leaf litter; tits and finches on birdfeeders; while a wren or wood pigeon may be perched on shrubs or trees, and you should record all of these.
If you happen to spot a sparrowhawk hunting over your garden (or any bird of prey) that should be recorded too, as it’s also using your garden, too (even if it doesn’t land).
However, you don’t record species simply flying overhead, in transit, such as geese or swans, who have no interest in your yard.
What’s really nice about this scheme is that it really encourages everyone to learn to identify garden birds, and takes the mystery out of it.
If you put a good bird book on your window sill, you’ll quickly learn to identify the common species.
There are also excellent species profiles on the BirdWatch Ireland website, and if you’re still having trouble, take a photo, and send it to BirdWatch via email or social media to get some help on identification.
- The survey runs for 13 weeks in total, but it’s OK to miss a week or two, as people are often away over Christmas. But please complete at least 10 surveys — that way you’ll still be providing really valuable data. This flexibility also means it’s a very suitable project for the classroom, before and after the Christmas break.
- Each week, you are recording the highest number of each bird species you see at any one time. So, if you see two blue tits in the morning and three in the evening, then your number ‘to beat’ for the rest of the week is three. So keep a note of that number, and unless you see a higher number at any one time later in the week, three blue tits is your number for that week. You start over again the following week. Never sum your counts between days or from different times of the day.
- There’s no need to register beforehand. You can send your records on the website, by email or by post, and the survey results are published each year in the winter edition of — BirdWatch Ireland’s membership magazine.
- To find out more and download your survey form, see https://birdwatchireland.ie/our-work/surveys-research/research-surveys/irish-garden-bird-survey/