Eco-Council Birdwatch

It’s been a busy few weeks for the Eco Council. They decided they would like to take part in the RSPB’s Big School’s Birdwatch. In their Eco Council meetings they did some research into why it was so important and what the data could show. The birdwatch was part of the RSPB’s annual garden birdwatch which is one of the largest surveys by citizen scientists and gives a real insight into what is happening in our gardens and green spaces in real time.

On Friday 23^rd January, some of the Eco Council met bright and early at 8am to do our first survey. The Junior Council also did a survey at lunchtime and the Early Years and Infants did a survey in the afternoon. We used binoculars, information sheets from the RSPB and the Merlin bird app to help us identify the different species. We found that a lot of robins and blue tits live in the trees around Coopersale Hall and the magpies were certainly the bravest and easiest species to identify.

Eco Council presented their findings to the junior school on Monday in an assembly, explaining the importance of the survey, encouraging others to take part and even challenging the rest of the school to see if they could identify different birds.

Afterwards Maggie, head of Eco Council uploaded our results to the RSPB’s website. Eco Council have really enjoyed being part of this survey and are looking forward to taking part in more activities through the year.