Bird lovers unite: let’s take a positive angle on life in these complicated times and participate in the bird population census.  Observe them in your garden if you have one, or in the trees and parks around your building.  Spring is here; now is their time as they sing for a mate and start to build their nests in a less polluted atmosphere.

For those of you in France, you can register online at www.faune-france.org which works in collaboration with the LPO/Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux.

You’ll find details on this page of which species you may see.  From your window listen to their varied songs if you can and identify each song according to the mood the bird is in (the blackbird’s sublime song can be very similar to the nightingale’s, but when it feels threatened and is stressed it turns into a pip pip pip alarm signal.  The robin’s song is famously intimate and beautiful, like that of a warbler; listen to him in the evenings,and to how his song becomes softer, as if murmuring to himself, cogitating over the day’s happenings.)  Check in on some of these songs on the above mentioned page.  Enjoy watching and listening to these little flying jewels who may just even come to your window.

On the European level, the European Bird Census Council collaborates with each country to gather statistics.

On the international level, see BirdLife International which offers, amongst other things, details of those species you can hope to see and observe in each country.

Up to date statistics – see the latest report from the IUCN Report/ International Union for Conservation of Nature – show a slight increase in some species, but overall an alarming decline in world species. We can all stop this decline by helping collect statistics for researchers and scientists so that we can find exactly what needs to be done to avoid annihilating these creatures which are of primordial importance for our biodiversity and so for our future.