I SPENT some time reading my diary for 1995 and I had some information about my favourite bird watching organisation.

This is the British Trust for Orinthology (BTO), which has developed the study of our common birds into a scientific masterpiece.

Since the 1930s the Trust has been carrying out scientific studies of birds and it is this organisation which co-ordinates the ringing of birds.

A light metal ring is placed on the leg of the bird.

Each ringer is specially trained and each ring has on it a number which is unique to the bird.

Anyone finding a dead bird or handling an injured bird should send the number to the BTO.

They can tell the age of the bird and the distance from the place it was ringed. The information helps in the understanding of the bird's life cycle and helps to keep the species safe.

This is what conservation is all about.

A few years ago I read the ring on an injured swallow in Towneley Park in Burnley.

I found that it had actually been ringed in Burnley and had been expertly trapped and released twice in South Africa.

The bird was then a five-year-old female and after a day's rest she returned to her nest on a window ledge in Towneley Hall.

The work done by the BTO includes a garden bird census when members keep bird tables.

They then make lists of the species seen in the garden.

From this we know that the most common species seen feeding in gardens are:

1) blue tit 2) blackbird 3) robin 4) starling 5) great tit 6) house sparrow 7) dunnock 8) chaffinch 9) greenfinch 10) collared dove 11) coal tit 12) magpie.

Since 1995 things have changed a lot.

The house sparrow has declined alarmingly and in a future article I will update you concerning the BTO's recent statistics, which will take up to the end of this year.

Anyone wishing to take part in bird surveys should contact The British Trust for Orinthology, The Nunnery, Thetford, Norfolk, IP24 2PU.

Not very long ago the song thrush was a serious decline.

I do detect an increase but I would be interested to hear from the Lancashire Evening Telegraph readers who see song thrushes in their area.

House sparrow sightings would also be of interest because we should not now refer to this species as the common house sparrow.