The BTO Garden Birdwatch Handbook

Feeding garden birds should have two primary objectives. Firstly to assist birds through the natural crisis points in their life cycle and secondly to help redress the balance of what we have done to the wider countryside. Bird feeding has increased five-fold in the last fifteen years. In early days we could help approximately 18 species in the winter. Now we can help 80 species throughout the year. What effect this is having you will see in later pages. Mike Toms and the Garden BirdWatch team have produced an enthralling book, showing how things have changed for the better since the scheme started in 1995. Hopefully, BTO Garden Birdwatch Handbook will encourage more of you to take part in what is turning out to be the largest and most successful year-round garden bird survey in the World. The results being produced are vital to our understanding of our garden birds and the factors affecting their survival.