Welcome to BirdTrack

The online bird recording scheme that increases the personal, local and national value of your sightings

New to BirdTrack? Read more about it...

BirdTrack Options

BirdTrack Partners

Useful Links

Species by Location
Download a list of species for any location in Britain and Ireland

BirdFacts
Find information about British & Irish bird species

Worldbirds

Other countries with online recording systems that welcome your records

BirdTrack Photos

See more BirdTrack on flickr Add your photos here

Desktop Wallpaper

Periodically we upload stunning photos for you to download to your desktop as wallpaper. The latest is a Snow Bunting.

Bird Atlas
2007-11

Records submitted to BirdTrack are an integral part of the Bird Atlas process; please ensure that you record breeding statuses wherever possible to make your data even more useful. Read about the new Atlas and how BirdTrack and Atlas work together.

BirdTrack Team

Meet the people behind BirdTrack at the BTO

Crests and Bitterns

20 November 2009

Crests have had very mixed fortunes this autumn. Many birders have noticed a distinct lack of Goldcrests, reflected by the BirdTrack reporting rate which shows that they have featured on less than half the complete lists than normal for this time of year. The very cold periods both here and in Scandinavia last winter are one possible cause. In contrast, it has been an excellent autumn for Firecrests, the difference perhaps attributable to the more southerly breeding distribution of this species.

Bitterns have also had a very good year; in fact, their best ever in British breeding terms. More about that in the November monthly update email but in the meantime, keep an eye out for individuals at any suitable local wetland as continental birds join our burgeoning breeding population.

Where are they now?

13 November 2009

Redstart © John Harding

Redstart may seem a strange bird to feature in a mid-November weekly update but as storms batter the country, it is worth considering where our summer migrants have gone to escape these kind of conditions. Continental Redstarts and Nightingales had reached west Africa by mid-October and birds from Britain and Ireland will have joined them by now (except for one unfortunate individual present in a Hertfordshire garden on 8th and 11th November).

The BTO and RSPB in tandem with BirdLife International partners the Ghana Wildlife Society and Naturama in Burkina Faso are undertaking a fascinating and ambitious project to discover where our summer migrants are spending the winter and what new threats they face. Not only does this project hope to discover why many such species are suffering alarming population declines but it is also providing training to local ecologists. Find out what has been happening out there this week and please help support this project through the BTO’s Out of Africa appeal.