Abstract from BTO Research Report No 241:

Marchant , J.H. & Noble, D.G. (2000 published 2006)

Waterways Breeding Bird Survey: Progress report for 1998-99
ISBN: 1-904870-86-4

Executive Summary

1. To fulfil its statutory duties for wildlife conservation, the Environment Agency requires good-quality information on the distribution and numbers of breeding birds along waterways, and on how bird populations relate to the habitat available.

2. The BTO has monitored the numbers and distribution of breeding birds along linear waters since 1974 through its Waterways Bird Survey (WBS), which uses intensive mapping to count and plot birds’ breeding territories. WBS data, however, cover relatively few sites and have not been as valuable as expected to the Environment Agency and other bodies concerned with nature conservation along waterways.

3. A new national programme, the BTO/JNCC/RSPB Breeding Bird Survey (BBS), was introduced in 1994 with the aim of taking over the monitoring role of the BTO’s long-running Common Birds Census (CBC), which covers mainly farmland and woodland, and perhaps that of WBS too. While this new scheme has been highly successful, earlier investigations had suggested that BBS would produce fewer data than WBS for monitoring specialist waterway birds: in particular, monitoring of Kingfisher, Dipper, Common Sandpiper, Little Grebe, Sand Martin, Grey Wagtail, Mute Swan, and Reed Warbler would be of lower quality.

4. With this background, the BTO began pilot work for the Waterways Breeding Bird Survey in 1998. Work in 1998 demonstrated that the method devised for WBBS was popular with observers and provided data that would be suitable for either a long-term national monitoring scheme or for short-term site surveys. Links were demonstrated with RHS. The first year’s pilot work identified topics requiring further study.

5. New work on WBBS has been funded by the Environment Agency for 1999 and 2000 (Phase 2). The main aims have been to investigate the power of WBBS for monitoring population change and to collect data to help refine the links between WBBS bird counts and RHS habitat variables.

6. In 1999, the first season of Phase 2, 170 WBBS surveys were conducted in total by BTO volunteers, including 106 randomly selected stretches and 62 stretches on which a WBS mapping survey was also carried out (with three stretches common to both samples) and five for which coverage had not been requested. There were 101 surveys that were repeated from 1998. The 170 surveys comprised 1168 500-metre sections. Overall, 158 bird and 25 mammal species were recorded on WBBS stretches in 1999.

7. Assuming a similar level of volunteer input in 2000, it is expected that there will be a sufficient amount of data to meet the aims of Phase 2 with regard to bird population monitoring. For comparison of bird counts with habitat, it is important that RHS data are made available from as many as possible of the WBBS’s randomly selected stretches by the end of October 2000.

8. Further WBBS fieldwork is planned for 2001–03, including expansion of population monitoring and a detailed analysis of relationships between RHS variables and breeding bird numbers.

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