Worcestershire Record No. 22 April 2007 p. 8

Patrick Taylor

We have been collecting records for Worcestershire’s most threatened breeding birds (red-list and amber-list) since 2004. We are concentrating on declining species and we are only looking for records with some evidence of possible breeding (e.g. song, carrying nest material, feeding juveniles etc.).

The aim of the survey is to provide WBRC with potential breeding sites for all declining (red-list and amber-list) birds as part of the ecological data provided to local authorities and other clients. We have a simplified recording form concentrating on nine relatively easily identified species (included with this edition of Worcestershire Record) , however there is a more comprehensive form on the WBRC web site www.wbrc.org.uk

By this time last year, after two seasons of recording, my article in Worcestershire Record no.20 still painted a fairly dismal picture of our knowledge of breeding birds. However this seems to have encouraged more recorders to contribute, and with further help from the Vision Mapping Project, 2006 was a very successful year for recording breeding birds. By Worcestershire Record no.21 in November, we had increased our records fourfold to more than 1600 and I was able to show progress with some “before and after” maps. During the winter, further records have been received and we now have more than 1800 records. I haven’t reproduced updates for all of the maps but the overall species diversity maps comparing records received in April 2006 with records received now are reproduced side by side below.

There are still swathes of Worcestershire with no records at all, and still more with just one or two species. There are certainly a few squares with none of the target species present, but there is no doubt we need a lot more records. Also, it must be remembered that this is not a distribution atlas – we need to know about all sites within the square – the maps are just a way of reporting progress in the early stages.

Every record needs to include:

Ideally, we would prefer forms to be submitted by email – forms can be downloaded from www.wbrc.org.uk and records should be returned to birdrecords@wbrc.org.uk

If you prefer paper, we will still accept your records by post to WBRC at Lower Smite Farm (see back cover for full postal address).

If you have records from previous seasons (back to 2004) it is never too late to submit them!

As you read this, we are already well into the breeding season (we define the breeding season as 1st April – 31st July) so please start recording!