Big Garden Birdwatch takes place over Saturday 27, Sunday 28 and Monday 29 January this year.
This long running survey is when we ask you to tell us what birds and other wildlife you see from the windows of your home.
All we ask is for an hour of your time at any point over the three days when you can note down the maximum number of birds of each species feeding, drinking or visiting your space. For example, if you see three robins in the first five minutes of your hour and one robin half an hour later, you record three robins as the later sighting may be one of the same birds recorded earlier. This way, we get a better defined report on the total number of birds living around you.
Your sightings are hugely important as they give us a snapshot of the number of common birds in private gardens, which are otherwise impossible to survey. More and more birds are dependent on private gardens for food and water. Understanding which ones are doing well and which are faring less favourably, helps us focus on those most in need. It's a snapshot of the health of our environment. Each species of bird has different requirements or diets. The Big Garden Birdwatch has been running for almost forty years so we've great historical data we can call upon to identify changes in bird populations. If there's a big dip in numbers, it's a sure sign something is wrong and worthy of further investigation.
This approach identified the depressing fall in house sparrows, with subsequent studies establishing that young sparrows were starving to death in their nests due to a lack of insects. Field experiments led to nationwide investments in wildflower meadows and a reduction in chemical use to control weeds and insect pests and the decline has now levelled-off. We've still got some way to go to see house sparrow numbers recover, but their decline gave us additional evidence of the decline of pollinators and the potential catastrophe that would bring to farming and food production.
So, please spare us sixty minutes at the end of this month. You can register for one of our FREE packs, which include all you'll need to take part: http://bit.ly/2l4EgHi
Whether you live in central London or the wildest, most remote part of Sussex, Kent or the Isle of Wight, we need details of your garden wildlife.