RSPB
Skip navigation
RSPB Wildlife ExplorersKids
Make and do Go back to the RSPB homepage Learn Discover Play Join In
Print page

Big Card Birdwatch

22 December 2010

Blue tit on branch

Image: Nigel Blake

You'll love this Bird Life version of Top Trumps starring the birds you're most likely to see in your garden. Play with your friends and family and see who has the best Big Card Birdwatch skills.

Download the PDF from the side of this page, print it out, and stick the pages onto card. Then cut them out and hey presto - your Big Card Birdwatch cards are ready.

How to play

  1. Shuffle your cards and deal them out face down to all players. Everyone must have the same number of cards.
  2. Each player only looks at their top card.
  3. The player to the dealer's left reads out one of the facts (for example 'weight 614 g') from their top card.
  4. The other players then read out the same fact and score from their top cards.
  5. The player with the highest score wins and takes all the top cards from the others and puts them at the bottom of their pile.
  6. The winner of the first round then looks at their next card and picks a fact to read out (for example, length) and the game repeats.
  7. If two or more player share the same top score then all the cards from that round are placed in the middle and the player picks another skill to read out.
  8. The winner of that hand takes the others' top cards as well as the cards from the middle.
  9. The game continues. Players who lose all their cards are out. The person with all the cards at the end is the Big Card Birdwatch winner!

Which bird wins?

Choose your score carefully to beat your rivals.

  • Our Big Garden Birdwatch has been held for more than 30 years now! Every January we get a snapshot of which birds are seen in the nation's gardens. Is the bird on your card a low or high scorer?
  • How long is your bird? There's quite a difference in the size of our garden birds. Being small might be helpful if you want to squeeze into a nestbox, but in Bird Card Birdwatch, being big is better!
  • How heavy is your bird? Big birds are the winners here!
  • Does your bird lay many eggs? This is a tricky one... small birds will be among the big winners - species like blue and coal tits can lay lots of eggs, but so can pheasants...
  • How common is the bird on your card? Are there more pairs of blackbirds or blue tits in the UK?