Results

The survey has seen activity at garden bird feeders evolve from a small-scale pastime based mainly on the provision of kitchen scraps to a multi-million pound industry. Indeed, it is estimated that around half of UK householders feed birds in their garden providing some 50-60 thousand tonnes of bird food per annum. With increased commercialisation has come a plethora of new bird foods and associated feeding equipment. The GBFS results suggest that these changes have opened the garden gate to many once-infrequent garden visitors.

Coverage

Gardens are chosen to ensure good geographical coverage across the UK and an approximately equal split between rural and suburban gardens. Each year, a few GBFS participants drop out and suitable replacement gardens are identified from among the membership of BTO Garden BirdWatch.

• Join BTO Garden BirdWatch

Instructions

The basic requirement for participation in this survey is that birds should be coming to food or water put out for them within a defined area of your garden that can be watched regularly for the duration of the winter.

• Read the full instructions

Funding

The GBFS is a relatively small project, so it is funded from BTO resources and, hence, no contribution to costs is required. However, this does mean that participation is limited to approximately 250 gardens each year, selected carefully from pre-existing participants in the larger, year-round BTO Garden BirdWatch survey.

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