ONE of the world’s biggest ‘citizen science’ projects came to Helensburgh’s Hermitage Park last weekend.

Keen bird watchers from the area gathered in the park to participate in the 2020 version of the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch project.

The aim of Saturday’s event wasn’t just to count the birds spotted in the park, but to provide a base line to enable the charity’s local members, and the Friends of Hermitage Park, to measure the impact the park’s £3.5 million regeneration will have on Helensburgh’s bird life.

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Participants spent an hour watching the trees and plants in the park, and the skies above, to get a picture of the different bird species that use the park as their home turf.

John Clark, from the RSPB’s local members’ group in Helensburgh, told the Advertiser: “The RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch has been running for 40 years. It started in 1979 as an event for children between the RSPB and the BBC’s Blue Peter programme.

“It wasn’t until 2001 that adults were invited to take part.

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“The survey is possibly the biggest citizen science project in the world. The volume of data helps to show trends like highlighting that house sparrow and starling numbers have dropped 56 per cent and 80 per cent respectively while great tit numbers are up 68 per cent.

“We had a successful event on Saturday in Hermitage Park with the keenest participants being the young children.

“The results we got will give us a baseline so we will be able to measure the improvements the future developments in the park will bring to the local wildlife.”

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