The latest Breeding Bird Survey report – for 2015 – is out. I collected data that went into this report, and I am proud that I did.
I immediately turn to Table 4 – the summary of trends for the UK (and then look briefly at Table 5 – for England) – but this time it looks rather similar to lots of other years – as, I guess, it should.
If trends continue then we will soon be up to our eyes in Ring-necked Parakeets, Red Kites, Mandarin Ducks and Gadwall but very little troubled by Turtle Doves, Little Owls or Wood Warblers.
The quality of a monitoring scheme cannot be measured by how interesting its results appear, only by how reliable they are. These results seem a little dull to me but that is no reflection on them, on the report, nor on the work that has gone into producing the data (a tiny proportion of which is my work) or the analysis.
I do wonder, though, whether there is a different way of displaying some of these results to bring out the interesting findings a bit more strongly.
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Good work the BTO and co. Thanks Mark.
Bullfinches are only just starting to sing in the last ten days here in W.Sx. Overall, it’s another very poor year for Tree creeper and Bullfinch song and yet their numbers seem to be steady on this CBC patch.
Song output here, as measured daily on a fixed transect, has varied a lot in many species over the last fourteen years. Weather patterns or population trends don’t always explain why this should be.
Murray, population trends are not supposed to explain annual or daily variations on a local patch! That’s why we combine observations from so many local patches (i.e. BBS squares) to arrive at the population trends. Also you make some staggering statements about bullfinches in West Sussex based on your own observations in just your local patch. Not enough bullfinches are recorded in BBS squares in Sussex for county population trends to be calculated but the percentage of surveyed squares in which they are reported has held fairly steady since 1994. In contrast, mistle thrushes and starlings ARE monitored sufficiently for county BBS population trends to be calculated, and these species are showing shocking declines in Sussex, whilst song thrushes and house sparrows remain stable. Mark, do you agree that the BBS trend graphs, of which I think there are only four in the BBS report, make the BBS results a little more interesting and telling?
Thanks, Helen, for your response. My comment was a ‘kite flying one’ about variations in song output in a number of common or garden birds.
I have never done BBS recording but I think I understand the science and statistical methodology behind it. I also understand and praise the change from the long running CBC scheme to the much more efficient and useful BBS one. It’s great for ever more citizen science.
I’m intrigued to know what you mean by my ‘staggering statements…’ Please could you explain?
I’m more than happy to be challenged and, if necessary, corrected.
By the way, 28 years CBC mapping indicate a fairly steady Bullfinch population of on average, just under two territories/yr., on 70 acres of common land.
Helen, I should have written: ‘here, in this parish in W. Sx.’ Otherwise it looks as if I’m generalising for the whole county. I hope you will at least agree that Bullfinch vocaliasation is a bit of a mystery.
According to Professor Tim Birkhead the Bullfinch ‘has no song to call its own’ [p242, The Wisdom of Birds, 2008 – a brilliant book on modern ornithology and its history]. Then, on the same page he moderates that comment by saying the bird does have a ‘primitive’ non-territorial song which is ‘about as melodious as a squeaky wheelbarrow’.
Contrast that account with Len Howard’s: ‘Bullfinches have an original song of a style quite unlike any other species. … It’s a great pity that [they] are lazy over singing their full song since they can compose such good music. … Their piping notes have a distinct resemblance to pan-pipes softly blown’. [pp 207-9, Birds as Individuals, 1953].
I believe both authors are accurate and correct in their opposing assertions. The question is how can that be?
The answer may possibly be explained by the great variability in the bird’s song output. It does actually seem that some Bullfinches are ‘lazy’ in some years or even in some regions. Perhaps Howard was lucky in the south and Birkhead is unlucky (for now) in the north of country.
Talking about breeding birds …… just looked at the Moorland Association website.
They claim “Careful land management through the skill and dedication of game keepers has seen significant gains for some of the country’s most endangered ground-nesting birds. It has also led to the successful breeding of hen harriers, Britain’s most talked about birds of prey.”
How can they have the effrontery to claim that the dedication of gamekeepers has led to the successful breeding of hen harriers? Where? Have I missed something?
So where are all those RSPB tagged hen harriers then? Bowland Betty; Annie; Chance; Highlander; Sky and Hope – to name but a few?
Are they deluded or just liars? Somebody tell me, please.
Wouldn’t mind some more red kites round my bit. Still too limited by poisoners and shooters. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind some of those parakeets, just for the novelty value. Not many bullfinches either. Loads of siskins and even nuthatches though.
In the old army barracks here in Bordon, Hampshire it has not been a good year for breeding swifts and house martins. Although against the law, I caught a major house building company demolishing these old barracks with live and active nests of both these species in them. Unfortunately the Police and CPS did not want to prosecute. But this event has exposed what I consider to be a major conflict of interest, where so-called ecological advisers are employed to advise such building companies. The problem as I see it is that although the ecological advisers have letters after their names as approved by the UK Government, these same companies all have major pro-development departments so that, in my opinion, they always side with the development and never appear to actually help to conserve the wildlife. The same appears to occur with county ecologists, it is the wildlife that always lose out. At a site meeting I attended the only ecologist with binoculars was me and the so-called “professional ecologist” declared there were no swifts on-site but within ten minutes one was seen going to a nest hole in the top of a barrack’s building.