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Winter Farmland Birds Survey

Casual Records - Introduction

Casual Record forms were distributed to all BTO members (all three winters) and subscribers of the journal British Birds (1999/2000 only). For each of the 30 target species we gave a threshold flock size above which we would like details (date, time, location, grid reference, number, habitat and activity). Some species formed mixed flocks, for example Redwings and Fieldfares. For these species, the threshold flock size could be applied to the combined flock, i.e. we wanted details of flocks of 100 Fieldfares or 100 Redwings, or any combination of both that totalled 100 or more. Some species were so scarce that we requested details of all birds seen.

100 or more plovers	Golden Plover and/or Lapwing
20 or more other waders	Snipe and/or Curlew
100 or more thrushes and starlings	Fieldfare, Song Thrush, Redwing, Mistle Thrush and/or Starling
20 or more partridges or doves	Grey Partridge and/or Stock Dove
20 or more small passerines	Skylark, Meadow Pipit, Pied Wagtail, House Sparrow, Chaffinch, Brambling, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Linnet, Redpoll, Bullfinch and/or Yellowhammer
all scarce passerines	Woodlark, Stonechat, Tree Sparrow, Twite, Snow Bunting, Reed Bunting and/or Corn Bunting

Casual Records - Results

	1999/2000	2000/2001	2001/2002
Forms received	440	302	280
Flock records	7301	4860	5353
Total birds	1,238,477	852,530	893,045

Throughout the main survey period of November to February Casual Records were received countrywide, with no apparent seasonal biases in coverage

November	December	January	February

Table of the number of birds of each species reported as Casual Record. These totals exclude multi-species flocks where a species total could not be determined (e.g. “FF/RE 100”):

Species	1999/2000	2000/2001	2001/2002	Grand Total
Grey Partridge	901	564	391	1856
Golden Plover	280,865	244,235	146,473	671,573
Lapwing	385,519	271,395	207,734	864,648
Snipe	15,577	22,479	7468	45,524
Curlew	988	798	808	2594
Stock Dove	5,380	1109	3180	9669
Woodlark	128	0	10	138
Skylark	17,356	8405	13,294	39,055
Meadow Pipit	5,840	2428	4266	12,534
Pied Wagtail	4,345	2527	1588	8460
Stonechat	271	229	661	1161
Fieldfare	109,790	71,964	66,818	248,572
Song Thrush*	721	1252	84	2057
Redwing	18,707	16,050	22,405	57,162
Mistle Thrush	131	105	33	269
Starling	319,137	121,075	303,908	744,120
House Sparrow	1744	1678	1193	4615
Tree Sparrow	2242	1803	1332	5377
Chaffinch	33,587	13,763	23,756	71,106
Brambling	2865	43	6645	9553
Greenfinch	7764	8346	5878	21,988
Goldfinch	12,488	3067	7331	22,886
Linnet	22,064	9543	18,734	50,341
Twite	5855	2403	4390	12,648
Redpoll	654	349	338	1341
Bullfinch	41	26	55	122
Snow Bunting	1906	73	2688	4667
Yellowhammer	9326	3976	6473	19,775
Reed Bunting	1749	1020	1769	4538
Corn Bunting	3688	2632	1095	7415

*Note that some Starling flocks (code = SG) may have been erroneously coded as Song Thrush (code = ST) since a small number of unlikely large flocks of “Song Thrushes” were reported. For further analyses, flocks of >10 Song Thrushes were excluded.

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