Get involved
Bring counting
to your patch.
If you help look after a place with water and wildlife — a park, a reserve, a school pond, a stretch of canal — Creature Counts can keep its record. Free, always: nothing to buy, nothing to subscribe to.
What your patch gets
Everything a project needs, ready to go
A page that feels like your place
A project page of its own — the story of your patch, the species to look for, where the marker posts stand, and the results as they grow. Written with you, in your words.
Marker posts and posters
Print-ready posters carry each counting station's code. Scanning one opens the count for that exact spot, so every count is tied to a fixed point by the water. If a poster fades, print another — the code never changes.
The one-minute count
Visitors count in the browser they already have: no app, no account, no sign-up. If the signal drops by the water, the count is kept safely on the phone and sent when it can be.
A record kept for good
Every count is stored with its time, station, weather and effort. Nothing is ever erased, and the whole record can be handed over as a plain spreadsheet whenever you ask.
How it begins
Three conversations, then a post in the ground
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01
Tell us about your patch
An email is all it takes: where the place is, what lives there, and who looks after it. There's no form and no waiting list — a person reads it and writes back.
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02
Shape the project together
We agree the species, the wording and the counting spots — the fixed places observers will stand. Good spots have safe footing and a clear, wide view of the water.
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03
The posts go up
Posters printed, posts in place, neighbours told. The first passer-by scans, counts for a minute — and your patch has begun its record.
What it asks of you
Honestly, not much
Somewhere to stand
A few safe spots with a clear view of the water, and permission to fix a marker post at each. That's the whole physical footprint of a project.
Someone who cares
A steward — the person or group who answers for the project locally, helps choose its words, and hears first about what the counts reveal.
A community to tell
A noticeboard, a newsletter, a friends group, a school assembly. Counting thrives where word of mouth is local — and the people are already there.
And that's the whole list. There is nothing technical to run and nothing to pay for — the counting looks after itself.
The stewards
Named, thanked, and in charge
Every project names the people and groups who stand behind it — its stewards. The word is chosen on purpose: stewardship means care and responsibility for a place, not sponsorship of a product. There are no tiers and no logos-by-the-yard.
Each steward appears on the project's page with the role they actually play — runs the project, cares for the park, scientific oversight — and the first named steward is the project's public credit. One group or several, it works the same way; and a project run by neighbours alone is credited as exactly that: an independent community science project.
Questions, answered
The things people ask first
What does it cost?
Nothing, ever. Creature Counts is free, always: nothing to buy, nothing to subscribe to, and no paid tier hiding behind the free one. The only things a project might spend money on are its own posts and printing.
What kind of place suits counting?
Anywhere with water, wildlife and passers-by: a park pond, a nature reserve, a churchyard pond, a school pond, a stretch of canal, the lake outside an office. What matters is a safe place to stand with a clear view of the water — the wildlife takes care of the rest.
Who owns the record?
Your community. Every count belongs to the project that gathered it, and the whole record can be exported as plain files whenever you like. If your project ever winds down, the record stays yours to keep — it doesn't vanish with the posters.
Do counters need an app or an account?
No. Scanning a marker post opens the count in the phone's own browser. First-time counters are shown how in one screen; the whole thing takes about a minute, and seeing no animals at all is a valuable count too.
How do you keep the counts scientific?
The same method for everyone, every time: fixed stations, one slow sweep, absence recorded as carefully as abundance. Unusual counts are flagged for an expert eye rather than quietly deleted. The full method is written up on the science page.
What about people's privacy?
There are no accounts and no names. Counts are anonymous, there are no trackers, and there's no cookie banner because there is nothing to consent to. Email is only ever asked for after a count, is optional, and no update is ever sent until the address has been confirmed. It's all in what we store, in plain English.
What if the story is delicate — animals that shouldn't be there?
Some projects count animals that were abandoned or escaped rather than ones that belong. Every page's words are chosen with their welfare in mind: the story is the health of the whole pond, never blame for an animal that didn't choose to be there.
Ready when you are
Tell us about your patch
One email starts it: where your patch is, what lives there, and who looks after it. A person reads every message and writes back.