Research into birds has been carried out by the Trust sinces its inception in the 1930s. This research has helped find the causes of declines of many of Britain's bird species and further work is finding how to halt or reverse these declines. Below you can find out the extensive range of research being carried out on a wide range of British bird species.
An example of this is the pioneering research carried out by the Trust on grey partridge in the 1960s which showed that declines of farmland songbirds were caused by the same contributory factors. Improving habitat and instigating predator control has reversed these declines on one farm on our Sussex Study area.
The GWCT also conducts research on birds other than the game species that populate pages of our website. Early work on cereal farms saw the GWCT conduct some of the earliest research on corn bunting, yellowhammer, turtle dove and skylark, which helped in our understanding of why such species were foraging badly on farmland.
For a species like lapwing we have studied them in upland habitats and are now undertaking a major restoration project on the River Avon in Hampshire.