Update on the BTO BirdTrack Research Appeal

Thanks to your generous donations to the BirdTrack research appeal, we have been able to engage a statistician and begin the process of analysing BirdTrack data. The first stage has involved identifying and taking account of some of the biases within BirdTrack data. These include user preference for nature reserves, coastal locations or other 'honeypot' sites, and the uneven spread of where observers live.

The next stage is to use this information to estimate where species occur, including for areas where observer coverage is low. Developing tools like this one gives us keys with which to unlocking the power of BirdTrack data. Once each tool has been built, we can keep using it to provide the most up-to-date information about birds.