The project took a tripartite approach, looking at the past, present and future of birding citizen science. The first part assessed the evolution of citizen involvement in birding activities to historically contextualize citizens’ ideals, scientific practices, and ideas of nature and to create a European baseline dataset for use in the development of the interventions. This comprised a deep historical study of the development of bird counting and ringing activities involving citizens. It examined how standardization processes took place and the role of amateurs in both setting and carrying out standardized work with a focus on women’s and amateurs’ roles in bird protection and citizen science since the 1880s. The report showed the important role of volunteers and amateurs in the development of ornithology and birdwatching as citizen science, and the role of birding organizations and museums in promoting environmental citizenship and nature conservation. A series of tools were created for the evaluation of environmental-based citizen science initiatives by evaluating existing frameworks and practices. A profile of the demographics and motivations of historical and current participants in Netherlands bird counting projects was undertaken for comparison to the trends identified in earlier parts of the research. The second part focused on how citizen scientists learn about and enact their environmental citizenship through their birding activities. A theoretical model of environmental citizenship in citizen science was developed and offered conclusions about how citizen scientists learn and what sorts of citizen science activities can contribute to environmental sustainability. A series of videos were created about current digital birding platforms and offer insights on how these digital platforms enable or hinder environmental citizenship. A comparative ethnographic study of garden bird counts was completed. The report showed that there is a strong link between love for birds and love for nature, and that birding can lead to a broader awareness of the importance of nature. This awareness and love is important when developing activities to encourage environmental citizenship. The research also showed how birding is shedding its “nerdy” and “male” reputation and is becoming more mainstream, with more women and children getting involved. Thus exclusion is being addressed and birding has become and continues to become more welcoming. The third part of the project sought to develop tools to encourage environmental citizenship through birding. It comprised two tasks focusing on educating people about the environment through birds and birding activities. Educational materials in the form of a guidance booklet for teachers and an activity sheet booklet for students were produced and translated into into Estonian, Dutch, Norwegian, Spanish, Greek, Romanian and Ukrainian. A series of stakeholder events also took place in the partner countries. These events focused on participatory environmental citizenship with the goal of empowering participants to become environmental citizens. The booklets and activity sheets are freely downloadable from the project website and stakeholders are being encouraged to host them on their own websites or to link to them.
