Just a reminder that the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust launch their first annual bird count today! All farmers and gamekeepers are invited to join in between now and 7 February - and all you need to do is spend about 30 minutes recording the species and number of birds seen on one particular area of your farm.
Jim Egan, Head of Development and Training at GWCT's Allerton Project explains why conducting the count is so important:
"Farmers and gamekeepers are vital in helping to ensure the future survival of many of our most cherished farmland bird species such as skylark, yellowhammer, corn buntings and wild grey partridges. They are responsible for managing the largest songbird habitat in this country on their land but frequently their efforts to reverse bird declines are largely unrecorded. We believe our Big Farmland Bird Count will help remedy this, particularly as our earlier pilot count showed such encouraging results."
"We understand the crucial role that farmers and gamekeepers play in the survival of farmland birds and we want to give them an opportunity of showing what their conservation efforts deliver on the ground. It is also a satisfying way for people to discover the different range of birds that are on the farm and the results can be surprising. We hope it will spur people on to do even more work for their farmland birds in the future and will act as a catalyst for them to start building their own long standing wildlife records."
Read more and register for your count on the GWCT's pages here.
Happy counting!