Big Farmland Bird Count 2026: The results - Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust

The results of the 2026 Big Farmland Bird Count (BFBC) show that farms providing supplementary feeding are supporting higher numbers of many farmland bird species whose breeding populations are declining nationally.

Run by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) and sponsored by the NFU, the BFBC takes place each year in February and encourages farmers and land managers to record the bird species and numbers on their farms.

Since 2014 it has formed a national census of farmland birds. It also aims to raise awareness of the important role that land managers play in helping birds across the countryside, quantifies the impact of the conservation work that many farms and estates carry out, and highlights the crucial support agri-environment schemes provide.

Despite poor weather conditions this spring, over 1,200 submissions were made from across the UK. A total of 275,024 birds were counted over 292,828 hectares of farmland by farmers, land managers, or their helpers, with the most counts submitted in Suffolk, Norfolk, and Lincolnshire at 139, 101, and 62 counts respectively. This year we found that that 67% of farms surveyed were in an agri-environment scheme, with 64% providing supplementary feeding for birds on their farm. In total, 69,222 red-listed birds were counted including 34 different species, with the most abundant of those being starling (25,306), lapwing (19,198), and fieldfare (15,816).