Working with a network of volunteers, static acoustic bat detectors were deployed over a long survey season, to provide the fourth season of extensive bat data for the Ryevitalise Landscape Partnership Scheme area of the North York Moors National Park. This report provides an overview of the survey coverage and main results from 2023.

This study updates previous reports that assessed population trends of waterbird species in different parts of the Humber Estuary, in order to identify areas where species were declining contrary to, or in excess of, the trend for the Humber Estuary as a whole and, furthermore, to identify sectors that support an increasing proportion of species that are declining across the Humber Estuary as a whole. Note: An error included when the report was originally published in 2023 was spotted and corrected in July 2025, the PDF then replaced with the correction. The error is that the figure for Table 3.1.i on p26 was duplicated and accidentally repeated as Table 3.1.ii on p27.

When the suite of wild bird indicators was first developed for England and the UK in the late 1990s, it was felt that insufficient data was available to be able to produce a sufficiently robust indicator for upland habitats. With the continuation and growth of the BTO/JNCC/RSPB UK Breeding Bird Survey, targeted efforts to improve coverage in the uplands (such as the NE-funded Upland Breeding Bird Survey and the BBS’s Upland Rovers initiative), as well as further repeated surveys of scarcer breeding species under the SCARABBS (Statutory Conservation Agency and RSPB Annual Breeding Bird Scheme) programme, it was considered now feasible to develop a robust and sufficiently long-term upland indicator alongside those for other habitats. In doing so we can fill an obvious gap in the reporting on England and the UK’s biodiversity, on the drivers upon it, and the success of efforts to protect our important upland environment.