Your neighbourhood is a birding spot

Look for water, food and gaps. Water: fountains, ponds, canals, puddles that linger after rain. Food: hedges with berries, fig trees, mulberries, bins, freshly watered lawns. Gaps: ledges, scaffolding holes, shutter boxes and old rooftops, where swifts, martins and sparrows nest.

Vacant lots are gold. A scrubby lot amid the asphalt concentrates redstarts, warblers on passage, stonechats and pipits in winter. That kind of spot usually vanishes the moment it's built on, so make the most of it while it lasts.

Don't forget the sky. Swifts in spring and summer, gulls crossing at dusk towards tips or roosts, storks on towers and, with luck, kestrels and peregrine falcons hunting between buildings. Peregrines breed on bell towers and office blocks in several European cities; check your local birding records.

First thing, before the traffic. In the city the limiting factor isn't light, it's noise: at seven you hear songs that by nine are lost under the cars. An urban park early on is a different place altogether.

Dusk works too, but for something else: roost movements. Flocks of starlings, sparrows gathering in one particular hedge, gulls in lines and swifts screaming overhead. Find your neighbourhood's roost and you'll have guaranteed spectacle for months.

After a summer rain, head out twenty minutes later. Wet grass brings up invertebrates and birds come down to the ground, closer and more visible.

The so-called common ones, which are the ones that really teach you to look. Blackbird, house sparrow, serin, great tit, blue tit, white wagtail, black redstart, starling, magpie, woodpigeon and common swift form the usual core of many Iberian cities.

Pay attention to behaviour, not just the name. The black redstart constantly quivers its tail; the wagtail walks bobbing its tail up and down; the blackbird runs in hops and stops dead. Learning these gestures is the foundation for identifying rarer species later, because almost everything is recognised by how it moves.

Note first and last dates. Swifts' spring arrival and summer departure vary by location; record what happens on your route. With two or three years of notes you have a data series no field guide can give you.

Yes. Repeated urban counts are useful data for tracking declining species. Citizen science programmes from BirdLife-affiliated organisations let you contribute observations of house sparrows and other urban birds through comparable surveys.

You can upload your lists to open platforms like eBird, noting the route and time spent. A short but honest list, with declared effort, is worth more than a long list with no context.

And there's something very practical: when you document breeding colonies on a lot or on ledges, that information can influence building and renovation decisions. The gaps where swifts and martins nest are often lost in facade renovations, and simple solutions exist if someone flags it in time.

Keep your distance from nests and never point binoculars at windows: it sounds obvious, but it's the most common complaint about urban birdwatching. If you're watching a ledge, explain it naturally to anyone who asks; in the city, telling people what you're doing usually sparks curiosity, not rejection.

Don't feed bread to ducks or sparrows. Feeding bread harms birds and attracts rats and gulls. If you really want to help, a clean water dish in summer does more than any bag of crumbs.

With chicks on the ground in spring, the norm is not to touch them: many fledglings leave the nest before they can fly well, and their parents keep feeding them. If there's a real risk from a car or a cat, move it the minimum distance to a nearby safe spot and leave it there.