Hertfordshire Bird Atlas

As the breeding season gets underway and fieldwork for this part of the project starts to accumulate breeding evidence, you can keep track of progress on the breeding season coverage map. This reflects Timed Tetrads Visits and Roving Records submitted online to the Bird Atlas 2007-11 website.

Please note where there are gaps in coverage and consider visiting those less-frequented parts of the county and submitting Roving Records.

It will take a while before the first results for the breeding season are added to this website, as we are heavily dependent upon web development resources at the BTO headquarters to provide the data transfer functionality.

29 April 2008

A second batch of records for the new winter atlas has now been loaded to this website. The First Winter Atlas maps now include all data submitted online to the Bird Atlas 2007-11 website up until 29 Feb 2008. Records from Timed Tetrad Visits in 185 tetrads and Roving Records from a futher 204 tetrads are included. These maps do not yet include data received on paper forms, although the coverage map does reflect those submitted via the Hertfordshire organiser.

A number of observers have been attributing their BirdTrack records to an individual tetrad, and this has provided another valuable source of information, with records from 76 tetrads.

Please note that these results are provisional and some records may subsequently be removed if they are found to be mis-identifications or data entry errors. This data validation process will not take place until all the first winter data have been received, including the paper records.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far. A total of 12892 individual records from 394 tetrads are already helping to further our knowledge of winter bird distributions in Hertfordshire.

28 April 2008

Up until 7 February 2008, 94 Hertfordshire BirdTrack sites have been assigned to an individual tetrad. Records from these sites have now been added to the existing Timed Tetrad Visit and Roving Record data. On the New Winter Atlas maps on this site we now have TTV data for 159 tetrads, Roving Records for a further 153 tetrads and BirdTrack data for a further 7 tetrads.

Please note that these are provisional results only, and the records have not been through any verification process. Excluded at present are the results from a large number of Timed Tetrad Visits, which have been collected on paper forms.

19 February 2008

The first batch of records for the new winter atlas has now been loaded to this website and some interesting patterns are starting to emerge. This is a fantastic response just half way through the first of four winter seasons. The new provisional maps can be explored from the New Winter Atlas species index.

Please note that these results are provisional and some records may subsequently be removed if they are found to be mis-identifications or data entry errors. This data validation process will not take place until all the first winter data have been received.

These preliminary results represent all data submitted online to the Bird Atlas 2007-11 website up until 8 Jan 2008. Records from Timed Tetrad Visits in 180 tetrads and Roving Records from another 141 are included. It does not include such data still on paper forms.

A considerable number of observers have been attributing BirdTrack records to an individual tetrad, and a batch of these will be added shortly.

5 February 2008

After months of preparation, planning and publicity, fieldwork for the Hertfordshire Bird Atlas and Bird Atlas 2007-11 has started. Over 200 of the 491 Hertfordshire tetrads already have volunteers assigned. and except in the most rural areas of the county we also have sufficient Timed Tetrad Visits planned to meet our commitment to gather abundance data for the national atlas.

The Bird Atlas 2007-11 website now gives you the ability to enter Timed Tetrad Visit counts and Roving Records online. As long as the Roving Records are assigned to a tetrad, they will also be used in the Hertfordshire Bird Atlas. In BirdTrack there is a new facility to register a tetrad as a site, making it quick and easy way for volunteers to enter a long list of species for a tetrad.

Even if you have not already signed up, it is not too late. To volunteer for Timed Tetrad Visits, please take a look at the Bird Atlas 2007-11 website or if you would prefer just to accumulate a species list for a particular 2km x 2km square tetrad, contact your local 10km square Co-ordinator whose details are shown on the Contacts page.

1 November 2007

To see how coverage of the county is progressing as volunteers sign up to this project, an atlas coverage map has been developed and is being updated regularly. Also, to show how the Hertfordshire Bird Atlas intereacts with adjacent counties, most of which are running their own tetrad-scale atlases, a County Tetrad Map has been produced. Both of these maps are available from the Resources page.

29 October 2007

As the start date of 1st November 2007 approaches, Instructions and Recording Forms for the winter season have now been added to the Resources page.

29 September 2007

For three winters between 1981/82 and 1983/84, an atlas of wintering birds in Britain and Ireland was undertaken as a collaboration between The British Trust for Ornithology and the Irish Wildbird Conservancy. Produced as a companion to the 1967-72 breeding atlas, the results were published in The Atlas of Wintering Birds in Britain and Ireland.

The results of the survey work in the 18 10km squares that form the Hertfordshire BTO region have now been added to this website. Read more

The use of timed visits to each of 3,761 10km squares across Britain and Ireland allowed the calculation of measures of relative abundance. The abundance threshold vary widely between species, an are based on a 50% : 30% : 20% split between the low, medium and high categories, using data from all regions. On this website, these thresholds are respresented by three different shades of blue.

9 July 2007

To help organise fieldwork across the county, there will be a network 10km Square Co-ordinators with local knowledge of their area. I am pleased to report some new appointments.

The following have kindly agreed top help organise atlas fieldwork in their respective areas :

• Colin Everett - TL00 (Hemel Hempstead)
• Clifford Smout - TL22 (Stevenage)
• Steve Carter - TQ09 (Rickmansworth)

Full contact details are available on the Contact Us page.

I am still seeking a co-ordinator to help with TL30 (Cheshunt and Hoddesdon).

21 June 2007

At a meeting of the Herts Bird Club Scientific Committee on 30 January 2007 this project was endorsed and agreement was reached on the precise form of the fieldwork. Read more

The primary fieldwork will be to establish species lists for each tetrad containing part of the county of Hertfordshire, in each of the breeding and winter seasons. This data will contribute to the species lists for the 10km square under the Roving Recorder component of the national atlas.

The Timed Tetrad Visits for the national atlas will initially be limited to the minimum requirement of eight per 10km square.

Boundary tetrads will be surveyed in their entirety, and data will be exchanged with any adjacent county tetrad atlas projects.

The colloquial English species names will be used on thie website rather then the official BOU species names (e.g. Magpie rather than Black-billed Magpie), but Latin names will also be provided where space permits.

Tetrad locations will be supressed for an extended list of scarce or threatened species, but tetrad counts will be provided. The previous list of sensitive species will be extended to include Black-necked Grebe, Stone Curlew and Woodlark. Any additional breeding species will automatically be afforded this status.

22 February 2007

To help organise fieldwork across the county, there will be a network 10km Square Co-ordinators with local knowledge of their area. I am pleased to report the some new appointments.

The following have kindly agreed top help organise atlas fieldwork in their respective areas :

• Jack Fearnside - TQ19 (Watford and Borehamwood)
• Rupert Pyrah - TL20 (Hatfield and Potters Bar)
• Steve Austin - TL23 (Baldock)
• Murray Orchard - TL32 (Buntingford and Puckeridge)

Full contact details are available on the Contact Us page.

I am still seeking co-ordinators to help with TQ09 (Rickmansworth), TL00 (Hemel Hempstead) and TL22 (Stevenage).

28 January 2007