What’s the trick to counting flocks of birds?

Wilfowl at WWT's Slimbridge reserve (James Lees)

Volunteers will spend this Sunday spotting and recording the thousands of waterbirds that migrate to the UK in winter.

Staff and visitors at all nine WWT wetland reserves will be taking part in the annual Wetland Bird Survey to count the numbers of different species, identify the sites they use and any changes in their populations.

Journalists interested in featuring this important survey (and discovering the knack to accurately counting large flocks) can visit one of our reserves to meet the experts. Birds they may see include Bewick’s and whooper swans, pink-footed geese, teal, lapwing and curlew.

Many of the birds being counted will have flown thousands of miles from breeding sites in the Russian and Canadian Arctic, Greenland and Iceland. WWT reserves offer protection and food, give the birds chance to recover from their long flights and prepare themselves for their return migration in spring.

Britain’s long coastlines and protected inland sites make it a critically important region for birds in winter.

The information gathered from the survey will help direct conservation effort to species most in need.

Visit http://www.wwt.org.uk/ for details of WWT’s nine centres.

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For more information contact prteam@wwt.org.uk / 01453 891162

Notes to editors

 

  • Follow WWT’s Migration Watch Blog – the latest migration news from each of WWT’s nine centres.

 

  • WWT saves wetlands worldwide – a critical habitat which is disappearing at an alarming rate. We act to identify and save severely threatened wildlife, such as the Madagascar pochard, which has been given a more secure future thanks to our decades of experience in conservation breeding.

 

  • Our researchers have been monitoring wildlife in the UK for more than 60 years, observing changes and finding solutions.

 

  • We put people at the heart of all our work, because conservation needs support to succeed.

 

  • And we share what we learn with experts around the world and with our 200,000+ members, the 60,000 school children who come on an educational visit to our nine wetland visitor centres in the UK, and the million people who visit us each year to enjoy a wetland experience.

 

  • We manage over 2,000 hectares of wetlands across the UK which between them support over 200,000 waterbirds and other wildlife.

 

  • WWT members enjoy free access to all nine visitor centres and are kept up to date with developments through an award-winning quarterly magazine, Waterlife.
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