Hertfordshire Bird Atlas

The Herts Bird Club has already published two breeding season atlases covering the periods 1967-1982 and 1988-1992. Continuing this twenty year cycle, fieldwork for our third breeding season atlas will start in April 2008. The primary aim of this project is to document the distribution of Hertfordshire's breeding bird species and highlight changes that have occurred over the past twenty years. This information is vital to identify declining species, as well as those that are doing well, to help formulate plans to ensure the continued health of our natural environment.

Between 1981 and 1984 winter bird distribution data was collected as part of a national Winter Atlas project, but we have never tried to map the winter distribution of our birds at a fine scale. Starting in November 2007 and running for four years, we will be collecting data to address this gap in our knowledge of the birds of Hertfordshire.

The results of this combined winter and breeding season atlas project will be presented on this website and further analysis will be provided in a publication as soon as possible after completion of the fieldwork.

This local fieldwork is being run in parallel with four year winter and breeding season atlas project across the whole of the UK and Ireland being organised by British Trust for Ornithology in partnership with the Scottish Ornithologists' Club and Birdwatch Ireland. This will revise the distribution maps and population estimates from the 1981-84 Winter Atlas and the 1988-92 Breeding Atlas.