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This project has a big influence in North Europe and especially in the British Isles, where last year 600.000 families took part in "Garden Birdwatch" project.

The project called "Inguruko hegaztiak" and promoted by the Urdaibai Bird Center tries to encourage the participation and the knowledge of our birds by installing simple devices (winter bird feeders) that attract birds in winter and that enable their feeding in our surroundings.These birds have enough food available during spring and summer, therefore in those seasons it is not necessary an additional feeding input because they prefer to feed on insects and berries that they find without problems in their habitat. However, once winter comes, temperature drops considerably and thereby also decreases dramatically food availability. Is in this moment when small birds come to any source of carbohydrates and fats to help them combating low temperatures.

Under these conditions, bird feeders fulfill their role attracting different species of birds to these simple devices and creating a large dynamic of those species in our gardens.

The project that we suggest this year will be a pilot project with the participation of two schools that have collaborated with the Center for years in similar projects (Urretxindorra and Montorre), as well as volunteers attached to Urdaibai Bird Center. For next year it is expected to open the project for all the families that are interested in taking part.

The project will focus on weekly record of the maximum number of  birds per species in each garden by the participants. The period of the data collection will be restricted between 20th of January and 31st of March of 2013 (11 weeks).