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Home > Contents > Methodology
> Common Birds Census
2.2 Common Birds Census The Common Birds Census (CBC), which began in 1962, was the first of the BTO's monitoring schemes for widespread breeding birds, but has now been superseded for this purpose by BBS. The 2000 field season was the CBC's last year of full operation. CBC results have been hugely influential in determining conservation priorities in the UK countryside. The store of detailed maps of almost a million birds' territories, collected through the CBC and maintained by BTO since the early 1960s, is a mine of information of unique value for investigating the relationships between breeding birds and their environment, over wide temporal and spatial scales. For many species, CBC and BBS trends can be linked to form joint CBC/BBS trends that provide ongoing monitoring, continuous since the 1960s. The weaknesses of the CBC as a monitor of UK bird populations were largely related to the time-consuming nature of both fieldwork and analysis. This inevitably limited the number of volunteers able to participate in the scheme, with the result that areas with few birdwatchers were under-represented. Constrained by the relatively small sample size, CBC concentrated on farmland and woodland habitats. Bird population trends in built-up areas and the uplands were therefore poorly represented. Moreover, as the plots were chosen by the observers, some may not have been representative of the surrounding countryside and there may be some bias towards bird-rich habitats. It is for these reasons that the BBS was introduced in 1994. Both surveys were run in parallel for seven years to allow calibration between the schemes (Freeman et al. 2003: BTO Research Report 303; Section 2.3 of this report). CBC, 1962-2000 The CBC was instigated to provide sound information on farmland bird populations in the face of rapid changes in agricultural practice. Fieldwork was carried out by a team of 250-300 dedicated volunteers. The same observers surveyed the same plots using the same methods year after year. On average, plots were censused for around seven consecutive years but a few observers surveyed the same sites for more than 30 years. Although the original emphasis was on farmland plots, woodland plots were added by 1964. Farmland plots averaged around 70 hectares in extent. Woodland plots were generally smaller, averaging just over 20 hectares. A small number of plots of other habitats, including heathlands and small wetlands, were also surveyed annually, especially before 1985. A territory-mapping approach was used to estimate the number and positions of territories of each species present on each survey plot during the breeding season. Volunteers visited their survey plots typically eight to ten times between late March and early July and all contacts with birds, either by sight or sound, were plotted on 1:2500 maps. Codes were used to note each bird's species, with sex and age where possible, and also to record activity such as song or nest-building. The registrations were then transferred to species maps and returned to BTO headquarters for analysis. Observers also provided maps and other details of the habitat on their plots. This makes it possible to match the distribution of bird territories with habitat features, providing the potential for detailed studies of bird-habitat relationships. The pattern of registrations on the species maps reveals the numbers of territories for each species. All assessments of territory number were made by trained BTO staff, applying rigorous guidelines, to ensure consistency between estimates across sites and years. In 1990, the results from the Common Birds Census were brought together in the book Population Trends in British Breeding Birds (Marchant et al. 1990). This landmark publication discussed long-term population trends for the years 1962 to 1988 for 164 species, with CBC or WBS population graphs for around two-thirds of these. Validation
studies Data analysis Indices are plotted as the blue line on the graphs, and provide a relative measure of population size on an arithmetic scale relative to an arbitrary value of 100 in 2002. If an index value increases from 100 to 200, the population has doubled; if it declines from 100 to 50, it has halved. The two green lines on the graphs, above and below the index line, are the upper and lower 85% confidence limits. A narrow confidence interval indicates that the index series is estimated precisely, a wider interval indicates that it is less precise. The use of 85% confidence limits allows relatively straightforward comparison of points along the modelled line: non-overlap of the 85% confidence limits is equivalent to a significant difference at approximately the 5% level (Anganuzzi 1993). Caveats are provided to show where the data suffer from a "Small sample" if the mean number of plots was less than 20. Data are regarded as "Unrepresentative?" if the average abundance of a species in 10-km squares containing CBC plots was less than that in other 10-km squares of the species' distribution in the UK (as measured from 1988-91 Breeding Atlas data (Gibbons et al. 1993)), or, where average abundances could not be calculated, expert opinion judged that CBC data may not be representative. In practice most CBC data included in this report have been combined with BBS data to provide joint CBC/BBS trends, using the methods described in the next section. These methods for producing joint trends represent an extension of those described above. Next Page - 2.3 Joint CBC/BBS trends CLICK HERE to go to the CBC section of the main BTO website |
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