Bird-watching: New study reveals world is home to 50 billion birds!

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Image caption, How many different types of birds can you name?

There are at least 50 billion birds in the world, according to a new estimate by experts.

A study done by researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia hopes to give a "snapshot" of the global bird population which can then help with conservation efforts to save birds from extinction.

Researchers studied 9700 different types to see how many there are on the planet.

Flightless birds were included in the study and it's the first of its kind to try and count the bird population.

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Researchers used data logged by bird watchers on something called eBird over the last ten years, to collect information.

They then took that data and combined it with scientific observations to come up with a method for estimating the population numbers for each species.

While some have populations at over 1 billion, including the house sparrow which is the most common bird, most bird species are rare with about one-in-ten down to fewer than 5,000 individual birds.

Lots of birds in Australia were found in the millions such as 10 million laughing kookaburras and 19 million rainbow lorikeets.

The researchers said the best part of this study is that it can fill in the gaps of information on birds that aren't widely studied.

Its also hoped that the study can help keep bird numbers up and help any species that seem to be falling in numbers.