|
Waterways Bird Survey
The
BTO began to operate the Waterways Bird Survey (WBS) as an annual
census of the breeding birds along rivers and canals in 1974.
It had been realised that certain waterway species were poorly covered
by the Common Birds Census (CBC) and in fact
they are still relatively under-recorded by the BTO/JNCC/RSPB Breeding
Bird Survey (BBS). This is because birds that specialise in
linear water features are under-represented in the square BBS sampling
plots. Species that WBS at its current level will monitor more effectively
than BBS, even if 3,000 BBS squares are covered, include (in order
of monitoring improvement): Kingfisher, Goosander, Dipper, Common
Sandpiper, Little Grebe, Sand Martin, Grey Wagtail, Mute Swan and
Reed Warbler.
WBS is still very much a current project, with more than 100 plots
monitored each year. Volunteers undertake similar habitat mapping
to the CBC. Nine visits to the site are made each year, between
March and July. Each visit usually takes about two hours and all
the waterside birds either seen or heard need to be identified and
logged. Contact John Marchant
(
) for more details.
|