Capturing data in the field with citizen science and species expertise
Browse the range of active BTO projects requiring support. Learn what they contribute to science, and how to participate.
Contributions & findings
- Winter wren populations show adaptation to local climate
- Flexibility in the timing of post-breeding moult in British passerines
- Latitudinal gradients in the productivity of European migrant warblers have not shifted northwards during a period of climate change
- Integrating demographic data: towards a framework for monitoring wildlife populations at large spatial scales
Contributions & findings
- Long-term changes in the migration phenology of UK breeding birds detected by large-scale citizen science recording schemes
- Robustness of simple avian population trend models for semi-structured citizen science data is species-dependent
- Estimating species distributions from spatially biased citizen science data
Contributions & findings
Garden BirdWatch
Help with research into garden wildlife by joining our Garden BirdWatch community.
Garden Wildlife Health
Tell us about sick and diseased wildlife found in your garden. Garden BirdWatch participants can also add observations when entering their usual GBW counts.
Contributions & findings
- The latest Grey Heron population trends from the Heronries Census are discussed on the Grey Heron page in the BTO's BirdTrends report.
- The modelled annual population estimates for the UK, now spanning more than 80 years, show a long-term increase.
Nest Record Scheme
Nest Record Scheme participants gather vital information on the breeding success of Britain's birds by following the progress of individual nests.
Contributions & findings
Norfolk Bat Survey
Norfolk Bat Survey offers anyone in Norfolk the opportunity to borrow automated equipment to record bats in the local area.
Contributions & findings
- Large-scale citizen science improves assessment of risk posed by wind farms to bats in southern Scotland
- Potential for coupling the monitoring of Bush-crickets with established large-scale acoustic monitoring of bats
- A novel citizen science approach for large-scale standardised monitoring of bat activity and distribution, evaluated in eastern England
- Bat-monitoring: a novel approach
Volunteer Mountain Hare Survey
This project aims to gather much-needed information about Mountain Hares in Scotland. Volunteers record hares and (optionally) upland birds via the Mammal Mapper app or with paper field recording sheets.
Wader Calendar
The Wader Calendar is a quick and easy way for farmers to record waders on their farm and contribute to a national monitoring scheme.
Waterways Breeding Bird Survey
The Waterways Breeding Bird Survey is an annual survey of breeding birds along rivers and canals.
Contributions & findings
- 3.75 million waterbirds are counted for WeBS each year.
- WeBS produces annual indices for 110 waterbird species or populations
- Species totals published annually for over 2,700 sites as open data on the WeBS Report Online
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