This report presents the results of the Nightingale Luscinia megarhynchos survey carried out in South Colchester, Essex, during spring 2025. The survey focused on coverage of habitat at Colchester Barracks and Middlewick, known to support substantial numbers of breeding Nightingales and other fauna and flora of high conservation importance. Plans for development had been proposed, which would likely cause direct and indirect impacts upon these species.

This report presents the results of the Nightingale Luscinia megaryhnchos survey carried out in Danbury, Essex, during spring 2025. The national population has shown a slight decline since 2012. However, there are indications that the distribution has become more clumped, with some localised sites seeing large increases over the same period — as is the case for Danbury. This highlights concentrated populations of birds that are more significant nationally and from a conservation and protection perspective.

This report, based on responses to a questionnaire sent out in August 2023, provides a vital baseline with which to assess the efficacy of future initiatives aimed at improving diversity across the BTO/JNCC volunteer surveys.

This report presents updated population estimates for six gull species following the Winter Gull (Roost) Survey (WinGS) which was carried out during the 2023/24 and 2024/25 winters.

The primary tool by which wader conservation is delivered in farmed landscapes is agri-environment schemes, whereby payments incentivise land managers to conduct beneficial management for species or habitats. Assessments of the effectiveness of such schemes have been based on infrequent, large-scale surveys which do not produce landscape- or intervention-specific evidence to facilitate local adaptations to the design of agri-environment schemes. This report details work carried out at 10 participating farms in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, where we trialled two methods that could help to evaluate the effectiveness of scheme measures at regional scales.

Connecting Constable and Gainsborough Country is a DEFRA-funded Landscape Recovery project. This report describes the use of passive acoustic monitoring to assess the status and distribution of birds, bats, terrestrial small mammals, and bush-crickets across the Stour, Brett, and Box valleys in south Suffolk. The project supports habitat restoration and woodland connectivity, with a focus on rare or declining species of conservation concern, including the Hazel Dormouse, informed by robust monitoring.

This report summarises results from the first year of Passive Acoustic Monitoring undertaken at Wild Neroche during spring and summer 2025. The intention is to establish a baseline dataset that will inform future assessments of how active management influences biodiversity across the Neroche area. This report summarises results from the first year of Passive Acoustic Monitoring undertaken at Wild Neroche during spring and summer 2025. Wild Neroche is one of four of Forestry England’s Wilder Forests, and is located in south-west England.The intention is to establish a baseline dataset that will inform future assessments of how active management influences biodiversity across the Neroche area. Bird communities were surveyed at 10 sites using autonomous recording devices operating in the audible range. During the initial deployment period, audible recordings were collected continuously during both day and night. The same devices were also operated in ultrasonic mode at nine of these sites to monitor bats, small mammals, and bush-crickets; ultrasonic recordings were restricted to night-time only. Audible recordings were collected on 140 days between April and September, while ultrasonic recordings were obtained on 67 nights between June and August. Devices were placed to survey a range of habitats including mixed deciduous woodland, coniferous woodland, heathland, and mesotrophic grassland. Analysis of ultrasonic data identified 13 species of bat, including the regionally important Barbastelle (Barbastella barbastellus) and Bechstein’s Bat (Myotis bechsteinii), both of which are included on the red list of British Mammals. In addition, three terrestrial small mammal species, four bush-cricket species, and two audible moth species were confirmed. One standout result of the ultrasonic survey was the exceptional number of detections of Hazel Dormouse (Muscardinus avellanarius), with 4,418 triggered recordings across six sites. Dormouse acoustic activity peaked in late July. In total, 73 species of birds were confirmed, including 35 species listed as Amber or Red on the UK Birds of Conservation Concern list. The repeated detection of Goshawk (Astur gentilis) across the survey area is also of particular interest.