Strictly for the birds

Many huge numbers are bandied about but how do we have any confidence in their accuracy?

Over the last few years, steps have been taken to collect statistics about the biodiversity of local areas in order to build up a picture of the health of the natural environment.

Biodiversity is a useful word for quite a complex idea. There are many definitions of the word, but essentially it refers to the number of species living in an environment and the overall health of those populations.

In order to counter the perceived threat to the health of the natural environment caused by road building, urban development and agriculture, there are many projects throughout the country aiming to improve the biodiversity of Britain.

How are these projects measured and how do we know whether they are successful?

Believe it or not, there is no substitute for counting.

Although laborious, the only true measure of the state of the natural environment is to count individual organisms.

Throughout West Sussex (and all over the UK), there are groups of volunteers who gather information about individual groups of species (such as bats, moths, birds or wild flowers), or survey defined areas (such as Whitebeam Woods).

All this information is fed into the Sussex Biodiversity Record Centre.

This information is then used to guide planners, developers and various projects to conserve wildlife throughout the county.

One organisation at the forefront of collecting information about wildlife is the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

Birdwatchers are perhaps the biggest resource of volunteers collecting information about the natural environment and birds are often a good indication of the health of the natural environment.

In addition to the thousands of pieces of information fed into the national database each year, the RSPB encourages all its members to gather information about garden birds on one weekend.

The Big Garden Birdwatch is to be held next weekend (January 27 and 28) and the RSPB is urging all householders to record the number and types of bird visiting gardens in the whole of the UK.

This information is crucial to understanding the overall health of the bird population and may provide some insight into what measures will be necessary to increase the numbers of certain species.

For the first time this year, TV wildlife presenter Kate Humble will be talking about Big Garden Birdwatch through a podcast diary to be found on the RSPB website (see address below).

Last year, 470,000 people took part!

If you would like to take part in the survey or find out more about the results of recent surveys, visit www.rspb.org.uk.

Survey forms are downloadable from this site.

If you would like to know more about biodiversity in Sussex, visit the Record Centre website at www.sxbrc.org.uk