The day involved enthusiasts counting up how many individual species they were able to spot.

While the winner will be announced this spring, preliminary data suggests that it will be the City of Pärnu, with 102 species having been spotted, that will come out on top.

The total represents the first time in the history of the event that over a hundred species were observed in one single town in Estonia.

Participants in the urban birdwatching day took part either individually or in teams of up to six members, and made observations between 5 a.m. to 1 p.m.

One participant, Sander Sirelbu, said of his motivation that it was: "More a theme of competitiveness; there's a competition between different cities and you get to see the spring species which come every year. This year spring has been particularly early, so it's very exciting."

Much depends on the weather, in fact. The number of birds spotted is much higher when the weather is warmer, as it was at the end of March at least, than when it is wintry.

Spotting birds can be done in more than one way. In open areas, visual observation plays a bigger role, but in areas with limited visibility, birds are more often noted by their song.

Marko Valker, also taking part in the study, said: "In among the forest and the reed beds, hearing is much more important than is seeing. In that way, you can find many more birds than you manage to get a direct visual on."

The Estonian ornithological society has been holding urban birdwatching days since 2002. Last year, the cities with the richest species were: Tartu with 86 different species spotted, and Tallinn with one fewer, at 85. The society says it will publish more detailed statistics concerning this year's results on its website next week.

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