Big Garden Birdwatch 07

Big Garden Birdwatch 27-28 January 2007
http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/
The RSPBs Big Garden Birdwatch is now in its 28th year, it has more than 450,000
participants recording more than eight million birds, but it hasn't always been this way. The RSPB's Peter Holden planted the Big Garden Birdwatch acorn in 1979 and has helped nurture it into the great oak it has become today.
The fun, simple survey started as a practical project for children who were members of the Young Ornithologists' Club (YOC), now known as Wildlife Explorers.
'Big Garden Birdwatch has grown from very small beginnings' said Peter. 'In January
1979 I was running the YOC – we were looking for a simple activity and as it was likely to be cold with dark evenings we could only think of a weekend activity in the garden. We asked our members to count the birds in their gardens, all at the same time, so we could work out a UK top ten most common garden birds.'
Despite growing 15-fold in 28 years, the format of Big Garden Birdwatch remains unchanged. The RSPB still asks people to spend an hour counting the birds they see in their garden during the last weekend in January. Changes in survey promotion, including the introduction of the website, has helped increase participation and also improved the way the RSPB records and analyses the data.
'It's important that the format of the survey has stayed the same because it means the scientific data can be compared year on year which makes the whole survey far more valuable' said Peter.
It actually took the RSPB scientists some years before they realised that the data, gathered almost completely by young people, was actually recording accurate population dynamics of garden birds – the first and best example is how the survey tracked the decline and the recent partial recovery of the song thrush.
In 2001, the RSPB invited adults to join in the fun and the popularity of the simple, fun activity was proved when 54,000 people took part.
'From there, we knew we had a phenomenal event on our hands and we enlisted a co-ordinator for the project to handle the promotion and manage the logistics which have become very complex. However, the real challenge has been to keep the survey simple for all our participants – many of whom are new to wildlife recording' said Peter.
Over the last five years the web has allowed the RSPB to make the data analysis process a lot smoother – it also means the Society is able to closely monitor bird population changes across the UK right down to postcode level.
In 2006, the survey broke all previous records with 470,000 participants surveying
270,000 gardens. Peter and his colleagues at the RSPB hope that the survey will continue to grow and inspire many more people, especially young people.
Peter said 'We have already launched a little sister to Big Garden Birdwatch in the form of Big Schools' Birdwatch. Last year 1,400 schools and 36,000 children took

part. It's great for large numbers of children to be involved and for us to be able to compare results and see which birds are doing well in gardens and playgrounds.
'Big Garden Birdwatch is already a project that a great many of the general public are aware of, and that is good for the survey, good for birds and good for the RSPB.
'To have half a million advocates for birds is a national compliment – especially as a great many of these people are passionately concerned about their local environment. This sort of support is the bed-rock of conservation.'
If you want to be involved, simply visit http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/ to read all about how to participate. Alex Burnham would also like to collate the results of all
Helmdon parish participants, to form a basis for a record of the birds in our parish.
Contact Alex via the webmaster.
Condensed and adapted from the full Peter Holden interview at http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/about/index.asp