I was up early, although not that early for me, yesterday to visit one of my two Breeding Bird Survey squares. This is the 12th year I have covered this particular 1km square on the border of Cambs and Northants – it almost feels like mine after all this time. The weather was cold, and…
Tag: BTO
Join the Hen Harrier Day thunderclap please
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Whether you can or can’t attend Hen Harrier Eve, and whether you can or can’t attend Hen Harrier Day, you can, if you use social media, add your name to a message that will go around the world at 10am on Hen Harrier Day saying: “We’re missing our Hen Harriers – and we want them…
Urban birding for the BTO
I took a leaf out of David Lindo’s book and went urban birding. Well, actually, it was the BTO House Martin survey and I had volunteered to visit lots of houses in Corby. Blackbird Road (off Dunnock Road) and near Robin Road, and with Jackdaw, Flycatcher, Fieldfare, Thrush, Nuthatch, Lapwing, Siskin, Magpie and Lark closes…
BBS second visits
I completed the second visits to my two BBS squares the weekend before last. Each passed without huge incident. On my first square it was a rather low species total over the two visits, but last year was the highest ever so not much of a trend there. I was glad that there were still…
An end of year survey
What do you think of wildlife NGOs, political parties, this website and a few other things? Just a dozen easy questions – and it is anonymous. Click here to take part. Poll will close late December, results here early January.
My northernmost parakeet
It was a cold Saturday morning and there weren’t many other people setting off from my street at 0650. Heading up the M1 I noticed that the trees, leafless, were pin sharp against the lightening blue sky. They looked as if they were drawn with a very fine pen. It’s difficult to get all dreamy…
Guest Blog – Of nests and nets by Dave Leech (BTO)
Dr Dave Leech is a Senior Research Ecologist at BTO, where I oversee the Nest Record Scheme (NRS) and the two standardised ringing projects, the Constant Effort Site (CES) scheme and the Retrapping Adults for Survival (RAS) scheme. My job involves developing survey methodology, analysing data and communicating the results to volunteers and the general…
More thoughts on a future BBS
I’m heading up to Scotland tomorrow to give a talk in Edinburgh, and I’ll be scurrying home on Wednesday before the independence vote on Thursday. I’m an Englishman born of an English father and Welsh mother but I had my first job in nature conservation in Scotland (before university), met my wife in Scotland, changed…
2013 BBS report – better together?
The most recent BBS report from the BTO, JNCC and RSPB isn’t very interesting. By which, I mean not a jot of criticism. It’s just that it seems to be telling me very much the same as last year’s report. That’s what monitoring is like sometimes – nothing much changes. But that doesn’t mean that…
BBS second visit
I’m really quite fond of my Breeding Bird Survey square (I have two but there is one that I think of as ‘mine’ more than the other). It really doesn’t photograph that well – being a bog-standard bit of arable farmland – but still, I am fond of it. On Sunday morning I made my…