Worcestershire Record No. 16 April 2004 p. 6

Harry Green, BTO Regional Representative for Worcestershire.

The BTO “County” is defined by a group of 10km squares which do not follow the administrative or vice county boundaries. Therefore there are parts of Worcestershire which I do not cover. But I do cover parts of Gloucestershire (mainly Tewkesbury and south of Bredon Hill) and Hereforshire (Malvern Hills). For historical reasons SP05 and SP06 have been covered by the Warwickshire Regional Rep. Arrangements are now being made for these two squares to be included in BTO Worcestershire. SP05 is about half and half Worcestershire and Warwickshire and includes Alcester and Ragley Hall. SP06 is mainly Redditch and about three quarters of the square is in modern Worcestershire (about half in VC37).

This means that I am now the BTO point of contact for BTO surveys in these two squares. Mark Smith, Warwickshire BTO RR, has I think informed BTO members living in these squares of the change.
If anyone living in SP05 and SP06 would like to help with BTO survey work please contact me.

The annual counts of known heronries are organised by Shaun Micklewright. I am not sure whether he will be able to cope now we have information on “new” heronries at Bittell Reservoirs, Redditch Arrow Valley Lake and Hewell Grange. We now also have the Ragley Hall heronries in SP05! If anyone would like to help with counts at heronries in 2005 please contact me.

We are very keen to keep track of Nightingales in Worcestershire because of severe declines in recent years. If you have records of singing birds for 2004 I should be very pleased to receive them

They can be sent to me directly by email zen130501@zen.co.uk or by phoning 01386 710377, or by leaving a message for at the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust office 01905 754919. I would be useful if you could let me know the exact location of the birds with grid reference if possible, the dates of the records, your name and contact details

Many thanks to those who took part in the Pilot Survey. The full survey is underway for 2005 and seven tetrads are being covered. I should be grateful if surveyors could return the results to me as soon as possible after the survey finishes 11th August 2004.

We now have 54 1 km squares to cover for this survey and I shall inherit four more from SP05 and SP06, 58 in all! Of the 54 there are observers for 50! I don’t yet know about the SP squares. I am pleased to say that we have the best coverage of all the West Midlands counties with number of squares covered similar to Shropshire which is a much bigger county. Annual trends derived from BBS are now calculated both nationally and regionally so good local coverage is essential for regional figures to be meaningful. Hopefully we shall be able to see Worcestershire trends alone before long.

The interesting development is that BBS surveyors are now able to input their results directly to the BTO via the internet if they wish – there is no compulsion! This is very helpful to everyone. There is less paperwork for the surveyor and the survey results should arrive at BTO much more quickly – they can be input at any time after the fieldwork. The system also includes feedback so that I know who has sent in records.

The trends in populations can be seen at the BTO website www.bto.org.uk.

The BTO has organised surveys of winter gull roosts since 1953, the last in January 1993. The 2003-2006 survey aims to produce the first estimate of the total UK population of wintering gulls, including coastal gulls. The survey consists of several parts. One is to count key site roosts which have been counted in the past and the other is to survey a series of randomly selected tetrads 2x2 km squares inland to discover if any gull roosts have been missed and to help give validity to the whole survey. There are also coastal counts which do not affect Worcestershire.

The one key site in Worcestershire is Westwood Great Pool near Droitwich and Gavin & Francis Peplow completed counts there last winter. The randomly selected tetrads are also to be surveyed in January 2005. Full instructions are given on the recording forms. If anyone could survey one of the following please contact me:

SO76Z Dunley, Oakhampton
SO74T North Malvern
SO83V South of Tewkesbury
SO74G near Colwall
SO86T Doverdale

Likelihood of gulls in these tetrads is small but a visit will get you out into countryside you may not have visited before! Also they are an important part of the survey.

Three tetrads are being surveyed. If anyone records nightjars anywhere in the county I would be pleased to hear from you.