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.