The 2021 Big Farmland Bird Count will be taking place between the 5th and 14th February 2021.

This important initiative helps to understand the effects of any conservation schemes currently being initiated by farmers and gamekeepers on their land, such as supplementary feeding or growing wild bird seed crops and game cover crops.

The GWCT have lots of handy resources and guides available, visit their website for useful info such as their Farmland Bird ID Guide, New Bird ID Videos or Feeding Guidelines for your farmland birds.

To take part in the Bid Farmland Bird Count this year, just follow these three simple steps:

1. Download your count sheet

• Those who participate in the count in February 2021 will be able to submit their entries online.
• To help with the count out in the field you can download and print our helpful count sheet.

DOWNLOAD COUNT SHEET

2. Count your birds!

• Choose a day, between 5th and 14th February, to spend about 30 minutes recording the species and number of birds seen on one particular area of the farm. You can choose your own location but somewhere with a good view of around 2 ha of the farm would be ideal.
• You’ll be asked to record the types of habitat and cropping on and adjacent to your count site to help provide us with more detail about your count location.
• To see the highest number of birds we would recommend that the site includes or is close to an area of game or wild seed mix or somewhere that supplementary feeding takes place.
• Ideally, counting should take place at first light as this is when the birds are most active. However, it is more important that you take part, so timings should suit you.

3. Submit your results online

• You can submit your Big Farmland Bird Count results quickly and easily online once the count begins on 5 February 2021.

All submissions will remain 100% confidential.