I’ve done a couple of visits to my regular BBS squares in order to collect information on wintering farmland birds for a survey funded by Natural England and Defra. Here are some of the highs and lows so far.
Doing a bird survey is a good way to start the new year and that’s what I did on 1 January. The winter bird survey is supposed to inform new agri-environment schemes in England and that is something that is worth doing.
I didn’t have to get up as early as I do for the BBS surveys in spring but I still felt vaguely virtuous as I started counting birds in a rural village in east Northants. To start with, the birds recorded were pretty familiar: Collared Doves, Jackdaws, House Sparrows, Starlings etc. As I made my way past where I usually record Sedge Warblers I gave them a thought and wondered exactly where they were right now – somewhere hotter than east Northants.
Because it was winter there were Fieldfares and Redwings in the hedgerows and the Fieldfare’s Chack! Chack! Chack! call was heard today instead of the Sedge Warblers’ trills and staccato notes.
There were fewer species and fewer birds overall but certainly enough to make the walk and the recording interesting. But then, I’m easily pleased and I find most aspects of the natural world interesting.
I saw no Brown Hares, even in the places where there usually are some in spring, but at the start of the second transect route I heard an unfamiliar call. It reminded me of a lark but it wasn’t a typical Skylark flight call. I looked up and couldn’t see the bird that was still calling, still sounding lark-like and still moving overhead. This bird had got my attention and I was wondering what it might be. Maybe a funny Skylark? But how many Skylarks have I heard in my life – and I’ve never heard one like this before? What other larks are there? Wood Larks? What do they sound like? I know their song very well but their flight call? I must have heard it, but what is it like? Aaaah! There’s the bird! I saw it just before it dived into a field of winter wheat and disappeared from view. No white outer tail feathers! That’s a Wood Lark. I waited to see whether I could see the bird but it was hidden in the vegetation. Just as I was giving up (and I am quite impatient) the bird took off again (no white outer tail feathers and a short tail) and carried on flying north calling as it did. I used my phone to check the flight call of the Wood Lark on the excellent xeno-canto website and heard the very flight call that had originally attracted my attention. So it was a Wood Lark. Woohoo! A less than annual Northants bird and my first for the county, and obviously my first for 2019 since it was about 10:20 on 1 January. It felt like a gift from the gods to reward me for getting out to do this survey.
A few minutes later a couple of Ravens flew over, croaking. They would have been recompense enough as they were new birds for me, for this square.
When I got home the young people were stirring and we had a late breakfast and then an early lunch before those young people headed off to pick up their busy lives after the Christmas break.
But I tried to enter my data online – as I always do quickly with BBS data. It’s good practice to get the data entry done as quickly as possible where the observations are fresh in one’s mind and before the scrawls on the data sheet becaome unmemorable as well as indecipherable. But the data entry function was not available. That’s odd – I’ve never known a BTO survey where one couldn’t enter the data immediately after one had collected them. And the data entry function is still not available almost a week later. That’s very poor, and very unusual. I don’t know whether I’m right, but I strongly suspect that the delay is in some way more to do with Natural England and Defra than the BTO. But it reflects badly on the BTO even if it isn’t their fault.
If anyone from the BTO, NE or Defra would like to explain why things aren’t working yet (and the first data could have been collected over five weeks ago) then they can comment here or have a guest blog. I might not bother to collect more data for this survey if it appears the data aren’t valued.
I enjoyed the Wood Lark though!
A Wood Lark in winter – just the thought of it is sublime.
‘Woodlark sings in the air before daybreak.’
[Gilbert White in his Journal, Jan 23, 1770]
It’s on the BBS data entry page – EWBS data entry available from early 2019, I must have read this in December and just assumed it might be sometime in January. I enjoyed December survey visit, habitat nearly all winter cereal but some Fieldfare and redwing & golden plover flock were highlights also a few yellowhammer. Woodlark – and identifying it as described – is really notable.
Richard – yes, it says early 2019 – that’s now! And yesterday! And the day before.
Thanks to Mark and all the surveyors who are taking part in EWBS – we hope you are finding the first visits enjoyable and are finding some new and interesting things, like Mark has done. We’re sorry that online inputting is not yet available – we agree with Mark that it is best to have the facility there for people to use immediately after collecting the data. However, there is a particular problem with the current funding environment and the uncertainty throughout government, whereby budgets are allocated annually and we typically get confirmation of projects later than would be ideal. The choice is between cramming surveys in and not doing them at all….
In this case, the survey had to be conducted this winter and, unfortunately, the systems that the BTO uses for online inputting can be complicated to set-up. This means that we need quite a long time to get systems up and running, especially with a busy web team working on multiple systems at once, including a revamp of the entire BBS data entry system, to which EWBS inputting is tied. As a result, we have been unable to get the online system ready yet.
We informed all volunteers on sign-up, and via the website, that data entry would not be available immediately, and now we expect the system to be fully tested and operational by mid-February. We initially said “early 2019” and the definition of that is an example of something that can keep people in online fora exercised endlessly, so I am not going to get into it here…. Anyway, we will notify volunteers when the system is ready. We very much value all the data collected and the delay in no way indicates anything different – it is just the result of limited time coming up against the need to deliver a well-designed, user-friendly system. So, we hope that volunteers accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience and bear with us. In the meantime, please carry on with the survey and keep the data sheets in a safe place!
Gavin – many thanks.
I surveyed a square not far from you Mark, over near Titchmarsh. There was very little about apart from around 50 Yellowhammers, all feeding from food put out for pheasants.
Chris – I had quite a few Yellowhammers on my other square – I’ll soon be blogging about that.
Nothing as rare as a Northants Woodlark for me but having appeared when I was *between* transects in December, a Goshawk timed it better on my January visit yesterday, showing up just after I’d started. Pretty sure that’s my first Goshawk on a survey…being as BirdTrack isn’t a survey 🙂 Other highlights were ‘square-tick’ Brambling, Fieldfare and Redwing, none of which are present by the time I do my Early BBS visit in the first week of May.