The Austrian wide winter bird count of BirdLife Austria

Every year, the bird conservation organisation BirdLife Austria hosts the "Hour of Winter Birds", the Austrian winter bird count. All nature lovers are invited to count birds for one hour on the days around January 6th. All participants actively contribute to bird research with their personal count results.

Anyone can take part even without much prior knowledge in bird identification. The campaign focuses on the most common and widespread bird species such as blackbirds, sparrows, finches and tits, that spend the winters in Austria. The main focus is on counting birds at feeders (though they are not mandatory) in settlement areas – in gardens, on balconies or in parks. Aim of the project is to answer the following questions: what is the most common bird species and where does it occur? Which bird species have become rarer? Or: How does the climate crisis affect winter birds?

Counts take place on similar dates in Germany, Czechia, Switzerland and, since 2024, also in Slovakia and Serbia. Therefore, the results can also be compared beyond Austria's borders.
Since 2021, citizen scientists are also invited to upload the best snapshots or video sequences from their own winter bird count.

• Adults and children counting birds in winter Adults and children counting birds in winter
• Eurasian siskin (Spinus spinus) Eurasian siskin (Spinus spinus)
• Great tit (Parus major) Great tit (Parus major)
• family bird observation family bird observation
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How to count?

It is up to the birdwatchers to decide on which of the specified days (e.g. January 4^th to 6^th 2025) and at what time they count. The maximum number of each species observed at one time during the hour has to be recorded. If help in bird identification is needed, a leaflet with illustrations of the most common winter bird species can be ordered from BirdLife Austria or downloaded from the website. The results can be reported by mail or online (www.birdlife.at). Deadline for reporting is about a week after the count period – the exact date varies from year to year. Participants will also be entered into a draw for prizes intended to promote fun in birdwatching and enthusiasm for nature.

The results can be tracked in real time on the reporting platform of the project "Hour of Winter Birds".

Results

During the 15th winter bird count from January 5^th to 7^th 2024, 27,821 bird enthusiasts counted almost 700,000 birds. A new participation record!

The data of the last few years clearly show that the number of feathered guests in our gardens is continuously decreasing. This alarming trend is reflected in many habitats across Europe: according to a recent study by BirdLife International, around 600 million breeding birds have disappeared in the last 40 years! The good news is that every garden owner can actively help to stop the current bird decline, at least in their own garden! A natural garden, rich in structure and with a variety of native trees, shrubs, wildflowers and herbs, can help garden birds through spring, summer, autumn and winter by providing important food and breeding possibilities.

Podcast episode

In december 2022, former project leader Katharina Loupal was guest on the Österreich forscht podcast Wissen macht Leute - you can listen to the episode here (in German). 

Contact & further information

Interested parties who have raw data on birds can contact the project manager Evelyn Hofer (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. / 0660 9225868). 

All information about the "Hour of Winter Birds" can be found on the BirdLife Austria website (in German).

BirdLife on Social Media: 

• Facebook
• Twitter (X)
• Instagram

 
BirdLife Österreich
T ++43 / 1 / 523 46 51
Fax ++43/1/523 46 51 50
A-1070 Wien, Museumsplatz 1/10/8
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www.birdlife.at

The “Blick ins Dickicht” project is dedicated to the search for the smallest native dormouse – the hazel dormouse. Until now, only very little has been known about this rare small animal. In order to learn more about its way of life and also how best protect it in working forests, evidence of hazel dormice is being sought in the Wienerwald forest and in the Donauauen national park. There are many different ways to participate here.

Where are hazel dormice found?

The hazel dormouse (Muscardinus avellanarius) is a type of rodent that lives in shrubs and bushes in the mixed forests of Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. Particularly important to this species is the availability of fruit-producing hedge plants and wood, such as hazelnut, brambles, honeysuckle, blackthorn and wild cherry.

A hidden lifestyle

The small, nocturnal dormouse is an omnivore. It eats, for example, seeds, buds and berries, as well as insects, small boneless animals and bird eggs. They are active from April to October, but hibernate during the winter months in nests that they build on the ground, often hidden under uprooted trees. Here, the hazel dormouse rolls into a ball and lowers its body temperature, heart rate and metabolism to a minimum.

Females have a litter of up to five once or twice a year and nurse them for around a month.

Hazel dormice are notably good climbers and are rarely on the ground during their active months.

Threats and protection

The hazel dormouse is protected in accordance with Annexe IV of the Fauna-Flora Habitat (FFH) guideline and is therefore among the most strictly protected species across Europe. The main cause of danger is loss of habitat and habitat fragmentation.

What are the goals of this project?

Due to the protection status according to Annexe IV of the FFH guideline, there is a reporting obligation in accordance with Article 17 of the FFH guideline. Despite this, Austria does not have any systematic categorisation and little is still known about the current state of the hazel dormouse. The goal of this project is therefore to improve the information base on the distribution, reproduction and population variations among dormice. Furthermore, the data that is gathered will also serve to coordinate management plans and silvicultural measures with considerations for the protection and growth of hazel dormouse populations.

How can I take part?

Opportunities for participation range from looking for traces of feeding on nuts to building and installing tracking tunnels to monitoring nesting boxes and thereby taking part in long-term monitoring of selected investigation areas of the Österreichischen Bundesforste in the Wienerwald Biosphere Reserve and National Park Donauauen.

Looking for traces of feeding on nuts

In autumn, you can find bitten seeds, from hazelnuts for example, under bushes and on the edge of forests. Traces of feeding left by dormice are very characteristic and therefore easy to identify. This method is thus ideally suited to providing evidence of the presence of hazel dormice, which is still unknown.

Building and installing tracking tunnels

These tracking tunnels, which are also easy for children to make, are installed in suitable places between ground level and chest height. Attracted by the bait, like some peanut butter, small animals such as hazel dormice will venture inside. Because the bait is placed on a mixture of cooking oil and activated charcoal, when leaving the tunnel, the animals will leave visible footprints on the paper strips. The footprints can then be used as proof.

Participating as a nesting box monitor

Nesting boxes that hazel dormice can use to build their nests will be installed in locations selected in advance by the project managers in the areas being investigated in Wienerwald Biosphere Reserve and National Park Donau-Auen. These nesting boxes will be observed by citizen scientists from April to October, during which time they will be checked in two-month intervals and inspected to see if there is a hazel dormouse inside.

Project management

Project manager for Wienerwald and Burgenland: Dr Claudia Kubista

Wienerwald Forest Management Unit

Pummergasse 10-12

3002 Purkersdorf

Phone: +43 (0)2231 63341-7173

Mobile: +43 (0)664 618 90 40

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Project manager for Donau-Auen project area: Birgit Rotter

National Park Donau-Auen

Schloss Eckartsau

2305 Eckartsau

Mobile: +43 (0)664 618 89 36

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Partner

Österreichische Bundesforste, Forstbetrieb Wienerwald

Biosphärenpark Wienerwald Management

Österreichische Bundesforste, Nationalparkbetrieb Donau-Auen

Since 2006, a wide variety of nature observations can be reported on naturbeobachtung.at. Specially designed reporting masks for various groups of animals, plants and fungi allow detailed entries. The reporters can, as far as possible, identify their observations taxonomically or report them as "undetermined species". The latter can then be subsequently identified by the community. Optionally, more precise reports are possible, e. g. with weather data or a detailed description of the site including site photos. Uploading photos of specimens is explicitly encouraged (and mandatory in the app, which also provides mobile access to naturbeobachtung.at). The possibility to upload "picture series" of an observed individual makes it much easier for the experts to check the reports, especially for species that are difficult to identify.

Discuss with like-minded people

A special highlight of the web version is the lively discussion forum with over 240,000 text contributions from over 40,000 discussions. Here, registrants can exchange information with other nature enthusiasts, show their most beautiful nature photographs or ask experts for identification help.

Report even easier with the app!

In 2018, the web version was expanded to include a free app for smartphones with the same name. Reporting via the app is simple, straightforward and fast: images (Exif data) and GPS data "automatically" provide all relevant data that are important for reporting an observation. The reports from the web and app are synchronized and can therefore be viewed on all devices.

Android App

iOS App

What will happen with the records?

All reports are checked regularly by experts. For reports with already assigned species name, the determination is checked and evaluated as "confirmed", "plausible", "doubtful" or "wrong". If the species name has not yet been assigned, the expert "determines" the species. If the reporter was only able to assign the observation to one species group, experts have the possibility to "specify" the finding on species level. The reporters are automatically informed of the result of the data check or determination - via email in the web application, via push message in the app.

Who checks the data?

More than 60 experts from all biological disciplines provide naturbeobachtung.at with their expertise. Most of them are volunteer experts from universities, museums or technical offices. In the course of time, more and more "amateur experts" with profound knowledge of species have also been authorized to validate data on the platform. The introduction of people to scientific activities is a declared goal of this Citizen Science project!

Teaching species knowledge - with fun

In 2021, the web version and app were expanded to include two new functions especially for schoolchildren and newcomers: Firstly, competitions - searches for a small number of easily recognizable species over a certain period of time - are intended to provide a playful introduction to observing, recognizing and reporting species. Species knowledge can secondly be tested and improved in an exciting way with various species quizzes: In increasing degrees of difficulty, the task is to assign the correct species name to a photo shown.

What has happened so far 

To date, almost 930,000 observations have been reported by over 17,000 contributors and more than 650,000 photos have been uploaded. The data obtained are used for further conservation measures and provide an excellent basis for current scientific work.

The most common examples for the use of observation data from naturbeobachtung.at are master and doctoral theses as well as scientific publications. However, observation data are also forwarded to various institutions: For example, data on selected animal groups in Styria were used in the compilation of the "Red Lists of Styria" in 2021, and plant observations from Salzburg were used in the biodiversity database at the Haus der Natur in 2022.

In this way, the Naturschutzbund with its Citizen Science platform naturbeobachtung.at significantly supports biodiversity research in Austria! Join us – as a nature observer or expert!

Podcast episode

If you would like to learn more, you can listen to the "Wissen macht Leute" podcast episode about the project (in German). More information can be found here.

Citizen Science Seminar

In 2021, poject coordinator Gernot Neuwirth held a lecture about naturbeobachtung.at as part of the lecture series "Citizen Science Seminar" at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU): "Factors for a successful contribution of Citizen Science to biodiversity research" (in German). At the end of this page you can watch the video recording of the lecture.  

• Fire salamander Fire salamander
• Ladybird spider Ladybird spider
• Fire Salamander Fire Salamander
• Bombus argillaceus Bombus argillaceus
• Southern festoon Southern festoon
• Cypripedium calceolus Cypripedium calceolus
• European stag beetle European stag beetle
• Common European viper Common European viper
• European mantis European mantis
• Bleeding fairy helmet Bleeding fairy helmet
• Stoat Stoat
• Eurasian pygmy owl Eurasian pygmy owl
• Exemplary project page Exemplary project page
• Image Gallery (web version, details) Image Gallery (web version, details)
• Express input mask Express input mask
• Raster chart with farmland filter Raster chart with farmland filter
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In Viel-Falter: Butterfly Monitoring volunteers, together with researchers from the Department of Ecology of the University of Innsbruck, observe, identify and count butterflies. The aim is to build up and establish an Austria-wide systematic butterfly monitoring.

Butterflies are an excellent indicator group for the ecologically extremely important animal group of insects. They react quickly and sensitively to habitat and environmental changes. Butterflies are also excellent for raising awareness of the importance of biodiversity due to their positive image.

Given the diverse habitats in Austria, 4,095 different species of butterflies live here, considerably more than in the much larger Germany. At the same time, many butterfly species are threatened and even species that used to be common are seen more rarely. The main causes for this downturn are changes in land use, intensification in agriculture and use of pesticides. Precise statements are difficult, however, as there are hardly any long-term monitoring programs to date. This is exactly what will change thanks to the Viel-Falter: Butterfly Monitoring.

In the Viel-Falter: Butterfly monitoring, surveys by volunteers (Citizen Science) are combined with professional scientific surveys. Thus, the advantages of two approaches are used to collect high quality and scientifically sound data. Thereby, the Viel-Falter butterfly monitoring also makes an important contribution to an Austrian biodiversity monitoring as well as an EU-wide butterfly monitoring.

At the same time, the monitoring contributes to raising awareness of the importance of biodiversity by involving volunteers. Education and public relations are therefore an important part of the Viel-Falter: Butterfly monitoring. At regular training and education events, participating volunteers and other interested parties can improve their knowledge and species awareness and make an important contribution to nature conservation.

Online course on butterfly monitoring

To ensure good data quality, intensive and personal training and support of the volunteers involved is of great importance. Our online course makes it possible to address many interested parties while maintaining a high level of quality. The course explains what biodiversity monitoring is, why it is important, and how butterfly monitoring works. The course is concluded by an individual personal meeting.

Click here for the blog post that introduces the course in more detail (in German).

Our aims are:

• Knowledge-based decisions instead of flying blind!
• Systematic and long-term monitoring of butterfly stands in Austria.
• Building a reference data set on the occurrence and development of butterfly populations in Austria, especially in the Alps.
• Making an essential contribution to monitoring biodiversity in Austria.
• Raising awareness for the importance of biodiversity and the preservation of regional biodiversity.
• To contribute to an Austrian biodiversity monitoring as well as to the European butterfly monitoring.
• Integration or creation of interfaces to surveys of other animal groups, especially insects.

How can you participate?

Anyone interested in butterflies can observe butterflies with a simple identification guide for butterflies in predefined locations in Austria. The observations will be carried out several times a year. No previous knowledge is required. The Viel-Falter team will offer personal training tailored to the individual volunteer.

Partners

The Viel-Falter: Butterfly Monitoring is managed by the Department of Ecology of the University of Innsbruck and implemented together with the Natural Science Collections of the Tyrolean State Museums and EURAC.

It is part of the Insect Monitoring Austria: Butterflies funded by the Federal Ministry for Climate Protection, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology (BMK), the Butterfly Monitoring Tyrol funded by the Department of Environmental Protection of the Province of Tyrol and the Butterfly Monitoring Vorarlberg supported by inatura, the Province of Vorarlberg and the Blühendes Österreich Foundation.

Gallery

• Argynnis niobe Argynnis niobe
• Parnassius apollo Parnassius apollo
• Butterfly workshop with volunteers Butterfly workshop with volunteers
• Enthusiastic volunteers Enthusiastic volunteers
• Volunteer with magnifying mug Volunteer with magnifying mug
• Small tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae) in magnifying mug Small tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae) in magnifying mug
• UNESCO award for Viel-Falter UNESCO award for Viel-Falter
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Have you ever seen a sparrow hawk in Vienna? Did a badger cross your path on your way home at night? Or do you have swallow nests at your housing complex? We are interested in your observations in Austrian cities!

The project works specifically in urban areas. With the help of Austrian city dwellers we want to get an overview of the distribution and way of life of mammals and birds in urban areas. We hope to obtain a broad data base based on sighting reports in order to better assess the distribution of diverse birds and other wildlife in Austria's cities.

Research platform

On the internet platform "www.stadtwildtiere.at" you can report your observations and view other observations. Find out about current sightings in your area and obtain further information on the biology of wild animals and their distribution in the city. You can also call up assistance in cases of conflict and for finding helpless or injured wild animals. We will also be happy to assist you with questions regarding your observation. The platform is so far unique in Austria: specialised in the occurrence of birds and wildlife in urban habitats and linked to scientific research.

Where pathways cross …

Understanding the city as an important habitat for humans and animals and creating a good coexistence - this is what we want to make possible with the establishment of the project "StadtWildTiere " and our research platform. Our goal is also to be able to provide adequate management proposals in the event of conflict or damage.

Become part of our research project!

In the Science Interview with Eva with Richard Zink and Theresa Walter, you can get a look behind the scenes of the project. (in German)

You can also find StadtWildTiere on Facebook.

Podcast episode

For the Österreich forscht podcast's first birthday, Peter Kovar, a dedicated Citizen Scientist in the project, gave interesting insights into the project in March 2023 - tune in! (in German)

Citizen Science Seminar

In 2022, poject coordinator Richard Zink held a lecture about StadtWildTiere and Wilde Nachbarn (in German) as part of the lecture series "Citizen Science Seminar" at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU). At the end of this page, you can watch the video recording of the lecture.

In this citizen science project of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, we would like to create an overview of where animals are roadkilled and what reasons there might be for this.

In the Roadkill project, we would like to cooperate with you in many ways, because citizen science means for us an active cooperation between research and society, in which everyone can contribute expertise and is highly valued. The collaboration is on a voluntary basis and can therefore be freely designed.

You can find out in which ways you can participate in the Roadkill project in the section "Participate in research".