BIRDWATCH AT PULBOROUGH BROOKS RSPB

THIS month has seen the beginning of one of the most important surveys of avian life in the country.

Over the next four years, the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) is organising the survey work for the next breeding and wintering bird atlases.

A bird atlas, for those of you who are new to the concept, is simply a map of where birds live, and of course (and just as importantly), where they do not.

The BTO has published bird atlases before. In 1976 it published the first breeding bird atlas of Britain and Ireland, which was repeated using comparable methods in 1994.

In between, the BTO published a wintering bird atlas in 1986. All of these projects involved thousands of volunteers from all over the country collecting data on birds in their local areas.

This current project will be a rerun of the breeding and the wintering bird atlases and will provide an enormous quantity of data on all species that occur across the British Isles.

Knowledge of bird distribution and abundance is a vital element in the conservation of wild bird populations.

Time and money spent on conservation is always in great demand, and work needs to be prioritised. Knowing how bird populations are faring over time and across the country allows decisions to be made on what needs doing where to ensure the species in most need get the best help.

The results of the bird atlas will inevitably show some remarkable changes. Depressing contractions in range and drops in numbers over the past two decades in turtle dove, yellow wagtail and spotted flycatcher are likely to be reported.

Other more common species such as song thrush, dunnock and skylark will, most likely, also show large reductions.

For full feature see West Sussex Gazette November 21