Major online survey launched to assess the 'economics of rarity' in birding

14/03/2018

Researchers from the University of Kent and the University of East Anglia have launched a new study aimed at better understanding the behaviour of UK twitchers.

In particular, the group is trying to learn what economic value is placed on vagrant birds when people go to great lengths to see them. In order to do this, they are teaming up with bird news services to make contact with those people who are most keenly focused on seeing rarities in Britain. The researchers hope that the study could provide insights into the economic value of rare species and so help make a case for their conservation. This comes after a US study found that a large-scale twitch in Pennsylvania contributed an incredible US$223,851 to the economy.

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Watching birds near your home is good for your mental health

People living in neighborhoods with more birds, shrubs and trees are less likely to suffer from depression, anxiety and stress

Date: February 25, 2017

Source: University of Exeter

People living in neighbourhoods with more birds, shrubs and trees are less likely to suffer from depression, anxiety and stress, according to research by academics at the University of Exeter, the British Trust for Ornithology and the University of Queensland.

The study, involving hundreds of people, found benefits for mental health of being able to see birds, shrubs and trees around the home, whether people lived in urban or more leafy suburban neighbourhoods.

The study, which surveyed mental health in over 270 people from different ages, incomes and ethnicities, also found that those who spent less time out of doors than usual in the previous week were more likely to report they were anxious or depressed.

After conducting extensive surveys of the number of birds in the morning and afternoon in Milton Keynes, Bedford and Luton, the study found that lower levels of depression, anxiety and stress were associated with the number of birds people could see in the afternoon. The academics studied afternoon bird numbers -- which tend to be lower than birds generally seen in the morning -- because are more in keeping with the number of birds that people are likely to see in their neighbourhood on a daily basis.

In the study, common types of birds including blackbirds, robins, blue tits and crows were seen. But the study did not find a relationship between the species of birds and mental health, but rather the number of birds they could see from their windows, in the garden or in their neighbourhood.

Previous studies have found that the ability of most people to identify different species is low (e.g. Dallimer et al. 2012), suggesting that for most people it is interacting with birds, not just specific birds, that provides well-being.

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Bird watching brings new discoveries

A recent study used bird watching records to build up the first bird watching database in China, which found a batch of new records of national level and a trend of of species moving to higher latitude and higher elevation regions.

The study named "Bird Watching in China Reveals Bird Distribution Changes", published in 2012 (31) issue of Chinese Science Bulletin, was senior-authored by LI Xueyan and led by Professor GONG Peng from Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Center for Earth System Science, Tsinghua University.

In recent years, bird watching becomes more and more popular in China. Besides enjoying the fun of bird watching, recording information about species and population can bring new data for scientific research.

Since bird is one of the most sensitive indicators of ecosystem health, both habitat range and migration route of birds could be affected by global climate change and the most direct impacts come from human activities and global warming. Nowadays the status and trend of bird distribution have drawn a great amount of attention in the field of global change. Using bird watching data, recent studies have highlighted the impact of human activities, response of climate change, identification of biodiversity hotspots, development of natural conservations and evaluation of protective effect. However, to date there has been no geographic distribution database of birds that is convenient for spatial-temporal analysis in China. Actually, how to obtain accurate location of geographic names on different scales has been a bottleneck problem of many databases in the field of history, ecology and environmental science.

A spherical GIS software "Global Analyst" (GA) was developed in Peng Gong's group that has been used in establishing China Bird Watching Database (CBWD). Using Google Earth remote sensing images which have high resolution and timely as base map, GA can support place name-querying and also provide abundant information about habitats and geographic ranges for mappers. The first bird watching database with geographic coordination uses points to represent the data, makes it convenient for update and maintenance, and provides an open platform for crowdsourcing.

Xueyan Li and her collaborators analyzed 30936 records from 2003 to 2007 in CBWD, including 17 Orders, 70 Families and 1078 Species. In terms of globally-threatened species on the IUCN red list, the current database includes four Critically-endangered species, 11 Endangered species, and 44 Vulnerable species (Birdlife International, 2008), whilst also highlighting 27 species in the under Protection Class I (Figure 1). CBWD includes 14 species which are additions to the national checklist, these new records occur either border on other countries (Yunnan, Sinkiang and Tibet) or are coastal areas (Tianjin and Hebei). 109 species appeared outside their original distributions from 2003 to 2007, show a trend of moving to high latitude and high elevation regions, which provide evidence for researches about ecological response to climate change.

The study could broaden minds of using bird watching data in scientific research, and lead the future bird watching activities.

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This work is supported by the Major Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.30590370), National High-tech Research and Development Projects (Grant No.2009AA122000) and The China Conservation Fund of Hong Kong Bird Watching Society.

GONG Peng
gong@irsa.ac.cn

Li X Y, Liang L, Gong P, et al. Bird watching in China reveals bird distribution changes. Chin Sci Bull, 2012, 57, doi: 10.10 07/s11434-012-5458-7.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-12/scp-bwb122812.php

Northern, central Wisconsin bird-watchers enjoy fall migration

With its chilly temps and changing foliage, local bird enthusiasts say that autumn is the perfect time to fall in love with birding.

Aside from spring, autumn is the next best time for bird watching since so many birds are moving to and passing through central Wisconsin as they migrate south for the winter, said Lori Schubring, owner of Wild Birds Unlimited in Rib Mountain.

“Food availability is what really affects birds and drives them down our way,” Schubring said. “If they can’t find enough where they are in Canada or around the Article Circle, they’ll go south where they’ll have a better chance.”

Fall migration begins in late June with shorebirds and warblers, followed by sparrows and water fowl migrating throughout the fall, said 47-year-old Dan Belter of Weston, an avid birder for the past 25 years.

http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/article/20121014/WDH04/310140122?nclick_check=1