British Trust For Ornithology

General information

The BTO is one of the world’s leading impartial scientific research organisations specialising in knowledge about birds. We are interested in changes to wildlife populations in relation to their ecology and the habitats on which they depend. Our information base includes long-term datasets that have been in place for at least 50 years. We are committed to making our knowledge available to optimise its use for nature conservation, land management, policy making and applied scientific purposes. We publish scientific results and provide impartial scientific advice.

Our scientific research and fieldwork includes surveys involving up to 30,000 volunteers, each of whose individual contribution is a vital part of our accumulated scientific knowledge.

We work in partnership with others in the academic and conservation science communities, with government departments and agencies, and with the private and voluntary sectors. The BTO has a unique combination of professional scientists and volunteers, highly valued data and information, and modern surveys with web-based, on-line data entry and retrieval.