Written by Dylan Gwynn-Jones a lecturer at UWA's Institute of Biological Studies:

"If you wonder around Aberystwyth this week (14-18 March 2005), you might see students dressed up warmly holding note pads in their hands. What are they doing? They are looking out for bird species in the local area as part of a survey on the birds of Aberystwyth.

One hundred and seventy students are spending one and a half hours each, making a list of the bird species seen at given locations in the Aberystwyth area. Apart from contributing to class data and a long term data set, they are also gaining invaluable field experience.

Prior to the survey, students were provided with images of 35 bird species common to Aberystwyth. With this information and other guidelines from our new ornithology website, they were set off to survey.

As part of their Year 1 assessment, class data will be analysed and students will be asked to write a report on the observations.

Why do it?

It is important that we start to establish long-term data sets on bird species in the local area. Getting students involved and engaged in this activity as part of their studies surely represents the way forward in this respect.

What do you hope to gain from this?

The RSPB have done an excellent job with the Garden Birds Survey. We wanted to develop a more specialist survey that would help train our undergraduates and provide information that is more relevant locally.

We expect that every student will be able to identify the common bird species of Aberystwyth. We also hope that this will inspire many into taking a broader interest into their environment.

There is concern about the abundance of some of our rare and commoner species and we hope that the establishment of this long term data set will help in monitoring change."

Written by Dylan Gwynn-Jones a lecturer at UWA's Institute of Biological Studies.

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