What is Spring Alive?

Spring is here and migration has begun. By recording your sightings you are directly helping species migrate safely!

Spring Alive is an international project to encourage children’s interest in nature and the conservation of migratory birds and to get them to take action for birds and other wildlife as well as to participate in events organized by BirdLife Partners.

By posting their first sightings of Barn Swallow, White Stork, Common Cuckoo, Common Swift, Sand Martin, Common Ringed Plover and European Bee-eater on the www.springalive.net website, children from Europe, Central Asia and Africa create a real-time map of the incredible journeys these birds take every year.

Spring Alive brings together children, their teachers and families to record their first sightings of seven easily-recognised migratory birds: Barn Swallow, White Stork, Common SwiftEuropean Bee-eaterSand Martin, Common Cuckoo and Common Ringed Plover.

By posting their records on the Spring Alive website, they help create a real-time map of the gradual arrival of spring. Each year, spring begins with a few scattered early sightings in warm countries, which are displayed as patches of pale orange on the Spring Alive map.

Over the next few months, as more sightings flood in, the colour spreads and deepens, until all the countries where these birds breed are a rich, glowing red.

Creating the map is one of the core activities. But Spring Alive involves lots more indoor and outdoor events, to engage children, schools and the wider community in the conservation of migratory birds, and to encourage them to support their national BirdLife Partners. 

Other Spring Alive websites