bto annual review 2013

September-October 2013/ Issue 306 A look at the work and strategy of the British Trust for Ornithology

2013

CORMORANT

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No Annual Review can cover the full range of the BTO’s work,

as set out in Council’s report and accounts (available on www.

bto.org/about-bto/accounts or on request). Our highlights for

the year ending 31 March 2013 focus on the delivery of science

and on the impact that work by BTO staff and volunteers

has upon decision-makers. David Stroud (JNCC) sets the

phenomenal achievement encapsulated in Bird Atlas 2007–11

in its advisory context (pages 4/5), whilst Andrew Watkinson

(LWEC) helps us to reflect on the evidence-base available to

those planning for a changing climate (pages 10/11). The BTO’s

international ambitions were taken forward by a second batch of

satellite-tracked Cuckoos, in a new paper on land-use in Uganda

(page 8) and through the new partnership with the Cornell

Laboratory for Ornithology (pages 16/17).

The year 2012–13 will be remembered for its weather, with

a wet summer (for most members) followed by a winter that

was harsher than the ones we have now grown to expect.

The Nightingale Survey was hampered by the late arrival of

birds and by tricky conditions in which to undertake carefully-

planned fieldwork (pages 6/7), and the same was true for our

pilot Chat Survey work in Wales (page 31). As the summer

2012 ended, results from CES and NRS were keenly anticipated

(BTO News 303). They revealed the lowest productivity ever

for species such as Chaffinch and almost uniformly poor

breeding for warblers. Measures of survival, clutch size and

productivity all feed into the new demographic targeting

work being driven forward by the Ringing Committee (pages

22/23). We cannot assess the consequences of the cold

weather of the 2012/13 winter until we see the BBS results for

the summer of 2013, but the harsh conditions, coupled with

sparse berry and seed crops, made for some interesting data

for the first year of the Winter Thrushes Survey.

With three fully-functioning offices now operating in

Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, BTO staff are better able to

react to issues that are of local importance. We were delighted to

meet many Scottish members in Edinburgh, to discuss priorities

for future work, and to have the first opportunity to review results

from Bird Atlas 2007–11, at a joint conference led by one of

our atlas partners, the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club. In Northern

Ireland, a major focus was on recruiting surveyors, with specific

support for seabird research, thanks to a new contract to employ

a part-time Seabird Coordinator, whilst BTO Cymru benefited

from the impetus provided by a new BBS mentoring scheme.

Bird Atlas 2007–11 is eagerly awaited by all of us. The tasters

provided in BTO News and on the website have highlighted

some big questions, particularly relating to the magnitude of

declines in distribution and abundance seen across a wide

range of species. On pages 12/13 Simon Gillings focuses on

upland waders but this is just one of many findings to pursue,

subject to funding becoming available. We are grateful to

everyone who supported the atlas project, whether by fieldwork

or finance or both, and to funders of a range of new initiatives

in support of work on Nightingales, chats in Wales, satellite-

tracking and developments in BirdTrack and Ringing.

BTO Annual Review | 20132

Establishing the Facts

WELCOME FROM THE CHAIRMAN

CONTACT USBTO, The Nunnery, Thetford, Norfolk. IP24 2PU

Telephone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .01842 750050Facsimile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .01842 750030E-mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [email protected] site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.bto.org

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The BTO promotes and encourages the wider understanding, appreciation and conservation of birds. Registered Charity no. 216652 (England & Wales) no. SC039193 (Scotland)

Patron HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, KG, KT

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Chairman Ian Newton

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Honorary Treasurer John Osmond

BTO PRODUCTIONEditor Graham Appleton, Su Gough

Editorial Board Andy Clements, Graham Appleton, Mike Toms, Jeff Baker, Ieuan Evans, Viola Ross-Smith

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The views expressed by the contributors to this magazine are not necessarily those of the Editors, the Council of the BTO or its committees. © BTO 2013.

Quotations should carry a full

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2013Annual ReviewBTO News 306/September–October 2013

BTO CHAIRMAN PROFESSOR IAN NEWTON OBE, FRS, FRSE

Annual Review of the British Trust for Ornithology ISSN 0005 – 3392

When you have finished with this magazine, pass it to a friend or recycle it.

Inside this special issue of BTO News

A message from the BTO Chairman

Bird Atlas 2007–11Highlighting the wider conservation value of the book

The trouble with NightingalesUnusual spring weather disrupts national survey

Scientific research in 2012 & 2013Three fascinating findings from recent BTO papers

There will be changes afootSpecies distribution in response to climate change

To the book and beyondShowcasing an emerging story from Bird Atlas 2007–11

BTO peopleCelebrating the tireless individuals who support BTO work

Multi-taxa research at BTOThere’s more than birds in our work

Bringing together global bird recordingAn exciting global collaboration

Habitat: a changing pictureHow perception of habitat changes over time

2013 | BTO Annual Review 3

CONTENTS

Getting our message out thereUsing diverse and novel technology to spread the word

Ringing it all togetherMore than the sum of parts: joined-up surveying

Scientific research in 2012 & 2013More insights into recent BTO papers and research

BTO Accounts 2012/13Presenting the annual accounts

PartnershipsWorking with other organisations

Corporate supportBusinesses and BTO come together

News from BTO CymruStories emerging from the BTO Welsh Office

Scotland’s changing landscapeUnderstanding the effects of changing land-use

The BTO in printSnippets from recent research papers

Acknowledgements & BTO partners

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Bird Atlas 2007–11National ornithological atlases come along infrequently but never was an atlas more timely or eagerly awaited than the imminent publication of Bird Atlas 2007–11, according to DAVID STROUD of the JNCC.

WHAT DID BIRD ATLASES EVER DO FOR CONSERVATION POLICY?

The global biodiversity crisis continues

virtually unabated (although the fickle

focus of the media’s attention is usually

elsewhere these days). Yet in recent years

considerable work has been undertaken

nationally and internationally to define

actions to halt and reverse these negative

environmental trends. To that end, the

Atlas will be of huge significance, not just

for those interested in the distribution

and abundance of Britain’s and Ireland’s

birds in their own right, but also for

those charged with developing and

implementing national conservation

policies.

Understanding how the Atlas will

influence government policies requires

a short detour into the arcane world of

international conservation policy. Whilst

this may seem far removed from issues of

bird population declines or distributional

changes, ultimately it determines what

priorities governments will address through

their policies, and accordingly where and

how governments spend money.

Back in 2002, world leaders at

their World Summit on Sustainable

Development expressed their desire to

achieve “a significant reduction in the

current rate of loss of biological diversity.”

by 2010. The previous year, the Heads of

EU Member States had expressed their

intention “that biodiversity decline should

be halted with the aim of reaching this

objective by 2010.” Solving the global

environmental crisis in less than a decade

was always going to be ambitious, to say

the least, and subsequent evaluations by

the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

and others documented continued global

biodiversity loss up to 2010.

In response, and with growing political

pressure for action, in 2010, the 193

Contracting Parties to the Biodiversity

Convention adopted a Strategic Plan to

guide conservation actions until 2020.

This contained 20 biodiversity targets

that fleshed out what actually needs to

happen to halt biodiversity loss. The targets

cover diverse issues from addressing

invasive alien species, to enhancing public

awareness of the value of biodiversity, and

to ensuring that “By 2020, at least 17%

of terrestrial and inland water areas and

10% of coastal and marine areas…are

conserved through… protected areas…”.

These headline targets have been

further elaborated, and widely adopted as

a framework for action by governments

and international bodies around the world.

In May 2011, for example, the EU adopted

a Biodiversity Strategy establishing a

framework for policy actions by the

European Commission and Member

States that will help deliver the 2020

David Stroud is just one member of the Atlas Working Group, drawn from a range of organisations and with regional and technical expertise, who steered Bird Atlas 2007–11 from inception to completion.

As individuals, our Atlas volunteers will be keen that their records should be fully utilised by decision-makers and we are grateful to David, the

JNCC’s Senior Ornithologist, who provided excellent guidance. Although the Atlas project fell outside the BTO’s partnership with JNCC, funding from the partnership is already being used to explore which broad environmental variables best account for spatial variation in the abundance patterns of bird species across Britain and Ireland.

LEADING THE WAY

WHAT DRIVES THE DECLINE?The 50% reduction of the breeding range of Willow Tit between 1988–91 and 2008–11 makes this the sixth largest proportional contraction across all species, beaten only by five scarce breeders – Fieldfare, Goldeneye, Hawfinch, Ruff and Common Scoter. It will be a challenge to identify the drivers of this decline and significantly harder to think of creative measures to support existing populations and encourage re-colonisation.


targets. In turn this is influencing actions

under the EU Birds Directive.

Nationally, DEFRA and government

administrations in the UK are also aligning

their work and priorities against the 2020

targets – and, in due course, there will be

a need to report progress against these

targets both to the EU and globally.

SO MUCH, SO BUREAUCRATIC BUT HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO THE ATLAS?

Our birds are some of the best

known in the world and past atlases

have given us impressively detailed

baselines against which to assess change

in their populations. The Atlas will be of

major significance to conservation policy-

makers. At the simplest level, changes

in bird distribution and abundance tell

us much about environmental change

and give information useful to guide

responses. Whilst the Atlas explores

some aspects of such change there is an

almost infinite number of conservation

policy-relevant issues that could be

explored further. Here are just a few:

Are there detectable differences in

the outcomes of the different agri-

environment policies in operation in the

different countries of the UK?

What is happening to bird populations

within extensive upland SPAs and SSSIs,

otherwise poorly monitored?

Are there particular land-uses especially

associated with declines of birds of high

conservation importance?

Where might restoration or creation of

new habitats to link existing protected

areas best be targeted?

The value of the Atlas will be in the

wealth of fine-scale data it will provide to

those seeking to answer these and other

questions and to derive policies that seek

to reduce the negative and accentuate the

positive.

In BriefBIODIVERSITY

Local monitoring

Welsh farmland

Many birdwatchers who have been involved in Bird Atlas 2007–11 are now submitting records to the enhanced BirdTrack scheme (pages 16/17), making them available for planners and conservationists working at local and national scales. It’s not just birds; during 2012/13 BTO IS staff started to develop a new online wildlife recording system for habitat creation schemes and nature reserves. This project, the Living Map, is being undertaken jointly with the Wildlife Trusts, who will be implementing the system within their Living Landscape schemes and reserves. Development of the online systems for this project will continue until at least March 2014.

BTO is conducting the bird survey component of a novel environmental monitoring framework in Wales; funded by the Welsh Government and led by CEH. Wales’s targeted scheme focuses on species dependent on specific management, like the noisy and acrobatic Chough feeding on short, invertebrate-rich coastal pastures or the remaining handful of Golden Plover breeding on upland blanket bogs. The monitoring framework is unprecedented in its ecological coverage - not only birds, but (almost) everything else, from soils and water to Lapwings and landscapes.

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The trouble with Nightingales

According to the latest BBS results, the

number of Nightingales is still in decline, with a

drop estimated at 46% over the period 1995

to 2011. Although data from Bird Atlas 2007–

11 gives a good idea of the latest distribution

of Nightingales across England, especially in

counties such as Sussex in which every tetrad

was visited to provide data for a local atlas,

the nocturnal habits of this shy singer mean

that a true picture of its population can only

be obtained through dedicated fieldwork. The

Nightingale Survey of 2012 aimed to replicate

those of 1980 and 1999 but to ask new

questions at the same time.

As all birdwatchers will recall, the spring

of 2012 was strange, with headwinds and

sandstorms to the south of the UK holding up

many migrants. Once Nightingales did arrive,

they were faced with a mixture of lower-

than-average temperatures and higher-than-

average rainfall, right the way through from

April to July. These conditions, which were

experienced across all bar the north-west of

the UK, had profound effects on the nesting

attempts of a wide range of species, especially

tits and most warblers, with Chaffinch having

the lowest productivity ever measured by nest

recorders (BTO News 303). The timing of

the season was delayed for many migrants,

with average first egg dates being particularly

late for Reed Warbler (10.7-day delay) and

Whitethroat (15.4-day delay).

Planning the Nightingale Survey involved

setting count periods which would capture

information on both numbers of singing

males and on the period over which they

continued to sing, the theory being that

males become less vocal once they have

found a mate, enabling some assessment of

the number of unpaired males. These lone

singers may well be exaggerating estimates

of effective population size, both by their

presence and through the prolonged period

over which they can be located. The timing

of the two core visits might have picked up

these differences in a normal spring but the

wet weather of 2012 delayed the season and

compressed the main period of activity. With

so many sites to cover and inclement weather

GRAHAM APPLETON reveals how the unusual summer weather conspired against those trying to undertake the 2012 Nightingale Survey.

a substantial number of sites in Essex and

Suffolk had to be surveyed in 2013.

As well as the main survey, in which

volunteers were asked to visit sites in which

Nightingales had previously been reported

twice in the early morning and optionally to

go back at night, there was a more intensive

element of the survey. Using a mixture of

volunteers and staff, a number of important

Nightingale ‘hot spots’ were intensively

surveyed; some receiving up to 16 daytime

and nocturnal visits to assess both the timing

and period of song. These data will help

scientists to interpret records collected by

volunteers visiting sites only two or three

times, as part of the main survey.

Once supplementary data from 2013 visits

have been combined with data from 2012 it

should be possible to update the population

estimate obtained from the 1999 survey,

when 4,565 singing males were thought to

be representative of a population estimate of

6,700 males.


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Nightingale Survey was supported by the Nightingale Appeal, the Nightingale Supporters’ Group, sales of the CD Nightingales: A Celebration, Anglian Water and 18 charitable trusts. The Nightingale will remain a focal species for BTO research; to learn more about the Nightingale Supporters’ Group contact [email protected] or on 01842 750050

1. ESTABLISHING HABITAT PREFERENCES BY RADIO-TRACKING

In the third winter of partnership work with the Ghana Wildlife Society and RSPB, BTO staff and volunteers focused upon further work to describe the habitat requirements of Nightingales in their wintering grounds, using radio-tracking to establish the importance of different patches within a farmland/scrub gradient. In additional work, to

VIEW FROM THE SOUTH: Studying Nightingales in Africa…

1.

Facts Figures

&

£7,000

£35,000

TRACKING

The cost of a Cuckoo satellite tag is only £2,700 but the real cost of the project is nearer £7,000 per bird, when monthly data charges and staff time to catch birds, interpret the data and provide feedback are included.

The Dulverton Trust is supporting work both to share best practice between those using tracking devices to study the movements of birds and to increase the pool of skilled ringers who are qualified to attach geolocators. As these data-capture devices become smaller it is hoped to be able to study Spotted Flycatchers but the current main focus is on Nightingales and Swifts.

With the support of Anglian Water, geolocators were attached to 11 Nightingales in East Anglia in 2012. A further nine birds were tagged in a joint project with the Forestry Commission in Kent. In order to double-check that the return rate for tagged birds is similar to that for birds just wearing rings, volunteers and staff actually caught a total of more than 50 birds.

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determine the breeding locations of these birds, geolocators were attached to a small number of Nightingales in the winter 2011/12. Three birds wearing geolocators were caught again a year later and their stories will form part of a paper that is in preparation.

2. TRACKING A NIGHTINGALE OVER CONTINENTS APART A Nightingale wearing a British ring was found by BTO ringers visiting the Kartong bird observatory in The Gambia in December 2012, a year after the first Gambian recovery in exactly the same spot. The birds had been ringed in Essex and Kent. These are the first two wintering records from BTO ringing.

2.

The latest Nightingale Survey went ahead in spring 2012, although there has been an extension of a year to allow all the sites missed in 2012 due to the terrible weather

conditions to be covered.

Spotted Flycatcher

MARK HULME‘s African study compares two different approaches to merging farming with wildlife CAT MORRISON’s study looks into the likely causes of migrant declines

Increases in human population and per

capita consumption are placing growing

pressures on ecosystems as agricultural

demands escalate. This has led to a debate

about how best to farm for both high yields

and biodiversity. Two contrasting models have

been put forward: land sharing, where low-yield

farming enables biodiversity to be maintained

within the agricultural landscape (also known

as ‘wildlife-friendly’ farming), and land sparing,

where high-yielding agriculture is practised,

requiring a smaller area of land to attain the

same yields and, therefore, leaving greater areas

of natural habitat untouched.

A study, led by ecologists in the BTO’s

Land Use Research and International Teams,

in collaboration with NatureUganda, Makerere

University, the University of Turin, RSPB and

the University of Cambridge, has examined

these two models in the Lake Victoria

Crescent, southern Uganda. This is an area

associated with the cultivation of coffee, tea,

sugar cane, bananas and maize and also one

of high human population density, with good

infrastructure and access to markets. Despite

this, there are a number of forest patches

retained within the farmland landscape

supporting many forest-specialist bird species.

Forty-one farmland and forest sites were

surveyed, across a gradient of agricultural

intensification. The population densities of

BTO scientists have been involved in a

series of recent studies aiming to investigate

the causes of the widespread declines in

Afro-Palaearctic migrants. While some of this

research has focused on the possible effects

of conditions in these species’ wintering

grounds, a 2013 paper written by members

of the Modelling and Demography Team,

along with collaborators at the University

of East Anglia, shows how population

changes could also be influenced by factors

operating during the breeding season and

on migration.

BBS data were analysed for 46 species

of passerine and near-passerine, including

residents, short-distance migrants (wintering

in continental Europe) and long-distance

migrants (wintering in the arid and humid

zones of Africa, south of the Sahara desert).

Overall, the study found that species

breeding in Scotland are generally faring

better than those in England, with several

species either declining in England but

increasing in Scotland, or increasing in

England at a slower rate than in Scotland.

These differences were especially

pronounced in long-distance migrants and,

in particular, those that overwinter in the

African humid zone, with species such as

House Martin and Garden Warbler strongly

increasing in number in Scotland only.

256 species of bird (including 10 Palaearctic

migrants) were measured, along with crop

yields and farmers’ income. The densities

at each site were modelled alongside yield

and income and, by using the shape of the

modelled relationships, the farming strategy

that would result in the greatest abundance

of each species was determined. In a result

consistent with similar studies in Ghana and

India, most birds were found to fare better

under land sparing, where more native

forest was left unaffected by agriculture. This

was especially true of species with smaller

geographical ranges, which are more likely

to be of conservation concern, reflecting the

importance of retaining forest patches for

such birds. However, the authors suggest

that high-yield farming can only be effective

in delivering land sparing if combined with

strong measures to protect natural habitats,

other ecosystem services and human

livelihoods, such as land-use planning and

agronomic support for small farmers, enabling

them to increase yields without having to

clear virgin forest.

FIND OUT MOREHulme, M.F, Vickery, J.A., Green, R.E., Phalan, B., Chamberlain, D.E., Pomeroy, D.E., Nalwanga, D., Mushabe, D., Katebaka, R., Bolwig, S. & Atkinson, P.W. 2013. Conserving the birds of Uganda’s banana-coffee arc: land sparing and land sharing compared. PLoS ONE, e54597. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0054597.

1. LAND SPARING V. LAND SHARING 2. HOME OR AWAY?


Scientific research in 2012 & 2013Many papers have been published by BTO scientists during the past year and, here, MIKE TOMS and VIOLA ROSS-SMITH highlight three of the stories that have emerged.

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GRAHAM APPLETON shares his passion for Black-tailed GodwitsCAT MORRISON’s study looks into the likely causes of migrant declines

Why do some Icelandic-breeding Black-tailed

Godwits spend the winter in England or Ireland,

whilst others travel to Portugal? Are there

benefits, in terms of survival and being in better

condition at the start of the breeding season,

that make it worth flying almost twice as far each

year? Wintering Black-tailed Godwits have been

intensively studied by a team of researchers

from the Universities of East Anglia, Iceland and

Cambridge, providing information about colour-

marked birds, intake rates, prey items and the

time that individuals spend feeding. In this paper,

energetics models were used to quantify the

trade-offs experienced by birds wintering in the

warmth of Portugal, the wet conditions in Ireland

and the colder eastern English estuaries.

There are huge differences in the energy

requirements of these godwits; those wintering

in Portugal need not spend energy to keep

warm and those wintering in Ireland require

negligible amounts. However, in east England,

energetic expenditure for thermoregulation

would have been necessary in all winter months

of the study, with demands in January and

March exceeding the recorded energy input. In

Portugal, monthly net energy intake rates are,

c.1 to 1.5 times as great as those recorded in

Ireland, and c.1.3 to 2 times as great as those

recorded in east England. Not surprisingly,

therefore, survival rates are higher for individuals

experiencing more favourable winter conditions

in Portugal – but does the longer journey delay

their arrival or confine them to poorer-quality

breeding locations?

Thanks to a network of BTO ringers and

over 2,000 volunteers, who have helped with

catching and reporting colour-ring sightings,

the paper’s authors know the winter location of

around 860 Black-tailed Godwits and can track

them on their northward migrations. During

spring, the majority of Icelandic godwits wintering

in Portugal undertake two flights in order to reach

Iceland, covering a total migratory distance of

c.3,800 km, with the majority of them stopping

over in the Netherlands. Most birds wintering

in Ireland and east England are able to reach

Iceland in one flight (c.1,425 km and 1,560 km,

respectively). Despite the much longer journey

for Portugese birds, they actually arrive earlier in

Iceland and breed in better-quality locations than

birds from Ireland and east England. The poorer

conditions experienced by godwits wintering in

east England therefore appear to influence not

only their annual survival rates, but also to carry

over to the breeding season, through delayed

arrival times.

Taken together, these results illustrate

how population trends can be affected

by interactions between breeding season

processes, wintering conditions, and the costs

of making long migratory journeys. While many

migrants may be facing increasingly tough

conditions outside the UK, it is likely that these

costs are being (at least partially) offset by

better breeding conditions in Scotland than in

England, which could be related to differences

in land use between the two countries (for

instance, lower agricultural intensification in

Scotland than in England).

This study helps to highlight the difficulties

and complexities in defining the numerous

and often interacting factors underpinning

avian population changes. Further

exploration is essential to properly reveal

the demographic processes governing

population trends of migratory species,

and could contribute to more effective

conservation measures, as many of these

species are on the Birds of Conservation

Concern Red List.

FIND OUT MOREMorrison, C.A., Robinson, R.A., Clark, J.A., Risely, K. & Gill, J.A. 2013. Recent population declines in Afro-Palaearctic migratory birds: the influence of breeding and non-breeding seasons. Diversity and Distributions 19: 1051-1058. doi: 10.1111/ddi.12084.

FIND OUT MOREAlves, J., Gunnarsson, T.G., Hayhow, D.B., Appleton, G.F., Potts, P.M. & Sutherland, W.J. 2013. Costs, benefits, and fitness consequences of different migratory strategies. Ecology, 94(1), 11–17.

2. HOME OR AWAY? 3. MAKING AIR-MILES COUNT


Behind the IMAGES…1. UGANDAN FARMLAND

Birds in southern Uganda were found to fare better in areas where land sparing (high-intensity agriculture requiring relatively little land area and leaving larger areas of native forest unaffected by agriculture) was practiced.

2. MARTINS When investigating the conservation issues facing migrants, such as these resting House and Sand Martins, it is important to understand the whole annual cycle, from breeding in Britain and Ireland, through migration to the wintering areas.

3. BLACK-TAILED GODWIT Each colour-ring sighting is another piece in the jigsaw. As they drop their legs prior to landing will one of these Black-tailed Godwits show a tantalising flash of coloured plastic above their ‘knees’?


There will be changes afoot

REPORT CARDWe know that climate plays an important

role in limiting species’ distributions and

populations through a wide range of

different mechanisms. Recent changes to

the climate should, therefore, influence

the behaviour, distribution and abundance

of species. As these impacts will only

be apparent over decades, the long-

term monitoring data on birds and other

biodiversity collected by volunteers,

including through BTO schemes such as the

BBS, Nest Record or Ringing Schemes are

fundamental to detecting these impacts.

A recent initiative, funded by the UK

Government and developed under the

Living with Environmental Change (LWEC)

partnership, has just produced a ‘report

card’ that summarises for the UK how

climate change has affected biodiversity,

and what the future impacts are likely to

be. So, what were the main messages?

The key message is that there is already

strong evidence for climate change impacts

on UK biodiversity. In particular, recent

warming has resulted in the northward

expansion of many species. Whilst we are

probably familiar with birds such as the

Little Egret and Nuthatch rapidly advancing

up the country, which Bird Atlas 2007—11

The topic of climate change provokes considerable interest and debate, and has been the subject of much scientific research. Here, JAMES PEARCE-HIGGINS, ANDREW WATKINSON (BTO Vice-president and Executive Director of LWEC) and MIKE MORECROFT (Natural England) outline a recent government initiative and some of its main findings.

will document clearly, these have been

more than matched by rapid shifts in

the distribution of many invertebrate

species. Notable examples include the

Long-winged Conehead cricket, which

has spread northwards, and the natural

colonisation of the UK by many others,

including the Southern Emerald Damselfly,

first observed in Norfolk in 2002. Warmer

springs have also led to a trend towards

many biological events becoming earlier.

Although well documented in nesting

birds using BTO data, earlier leafing

of trees and the appearance of spring

flowers and insects have also been widely

reported. Similarly, the arrival times of

migratory birds have advanced, particularly

in those with shorter migration distances

that arrive earliest in the year.

What is the impact of these changes

on populations, and to what extent does

climate change threaten species in the

UK? For some species, climate change

appears to provide an opportunity, and

their populations are increasing. However,

for others, particularly those in the north

or occupying upland habitats, such as

the Mountain Ringlet butterfly, there is

increasing evidence that their populations

have declined in the UK in response to

climate change. As a result, one of the

clearest signals of climate change impacts

on biodiversity in the UK has been of

changes to ecological communities.

Analyses of BBS data have shown that bird

communities are becoming more similar

to each other, as widespread generalists

have become more common at the

expense of rarer habitat specialists. More

widely, species associated with warmer

temperatures have tended to replace those

that occupy colder climates.

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD IN STORE?We are beginning to see signs that climate

change may disrupt ecological interactions

between species, whether by altering

the timing of food availability, or through

changes in predator and prey populations

and distributions. As a result, with

increasing magnitude of climate change,

there are projected to be more and more

impacts on the wildlife around us, which

are likely to interact with other pressures

and processes to change the future

prospects of many of our bird species. That

is why the long-term monitoring of the

BTO is so key in disentangling the climate

change signal from other drivers that are

affecting our wildlife.

ON THE MOVE TO NOWHERE?

Mountain Ringlet is only found at altitudes of 450–800m. Numbers have declined by 69% in the last 25 years, with the losses greater at lower-altitude sites. Climate change is considered the biggest threat to this species.

NEW ARRIVAL

First noted on the south coast in the 1940s, Long-winged Coneheads have been spreading steadily northwards.

‘Although well documented in nesting birds using BTO data, earlier leafing of trees and the appearance of spring flowers and insects have also been widely reported.’

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One feature of the weather in the last decade has been an increased frequency of extreme events, whether particularly hot summers, such as the 2003 heatwave, or recent cold winters. Spring and summer drought conditions can have a detrimental effect on many plants, insects, birds and mammals, particularly affecting northerly distributed species, and may initiate habitat change, for example through wildfires or changes in woodland composition. Conversely, heavy rain and flooding may also lead to localised mortality and loss of species’ breeding attempts, such as Snipe and other waders breeding along the Ouse Washes. Whilst, naturally, populations should be resilient to these extreme events, artificially small or fragmented populations may be particularly threatened by them.

Weather EVENTS & WILDLIFE

THIS REPORT CARD was the work of over 40 scientists from 20 different organisations, who wrote a total of 15 technical papers that underpin the report card – a short accessible summary. Three of these were written by BTO staff. As each paper is cross-referenced to information on the report card, the reader can trace

the original sources underpinning each statement. Importantly, each statement was given a ‘confidence level’, based upon the amount of evidence underpinning it, and the level of agreement across that evidence. As a result, this report card should present as close to a scientific consensus on the impact that climate

change has had so far on the UK’s biodiversity, and also on the likely severity of the impact to come. As such, it should be widely read and used. It, and the underpinning technical papers, can be downloaded from the LWEC website at www.lwec.org.uk/resources/report-cards/biodiversity

ARE WE CONFIDENT?


For the last few months the Atlas Team has

been focusing closely on individual species,

distilling the insights gained from the new

distribution, abundance and change maps,

and combining them with the latest research

to produce concise species accounts for the

Bird Atlas 2007–11 book. We now enter a

new and exciting phase to bring together all

those individual species stories and uncover

the broader factors affecting the avifaunas

of Britain and Ireland. Already, one species

group, the breeding waders, stands out as

worthy of detailed investigation.

During the 2008–11 breeding seasons, 24

species of wader were recorded with breeding

evidence in Britain and Ireland, although four

were very rare. Temminck’s Stints did not

actually breed: a fleetingly territorial individual

in one year was the best showing. Black-

winged Stilts made their seventh documented

breeding attempt, although they failed to

fledge young. Two pairs of Purple Sandpipers

and three pairs of Green Sandpipers again

bred in the Scottish Highlands.

The remaining 20 species are a varied

bunch. In terms of occupancy they range

from the rapidly declining Ruff, recorded with

breeding evidence in just 16 10-km squares,

to the Lapwing, still our most widespread

breeding wader in 2,457 squares. There are

lowland specialists such as the Stone-curlew

(54 squares), montane specialists such

as Dotterel (82 squares) and a seemingly

adaptable generalist, the Oystercatcher,

breeding in 2,223 squares, encompassing

shorelines, farmland, uplands, rivers and

even factory roofs. And there are the special

species such as the Woodcock, already

the focus of a dedicated survey in 2013,

following the detection of a large breeding-

range contraction.

So how is this group of related but

ecologically diverse species faring? In

Britain there are some good-news stories,

mostly from the lowlands. Avocet makes it

into fifth position for the species with the

greatest range expansion since the 1968–72

Breeding Atlas, having expanded from just

eight 10-km squares to 141 squares in

2008–11. Little Ringed Plover has continued

to spread following its colonisation in the

1930s. Oystercatchers have also fared well,

now occupying 28% more 10-km squares,

with gains forming a broad swathe from the

interior of East Anglia west to the Wirral and

north to Northumberland.

On the other side of the scales there

are 12 species whose British breeding

ranges have contracted since 1968–72.

Three – Woodcock, Redshank and Stone-

curlew – are in the top 20 species showing

largest declines. All have been lost from

at least 42% of the squares in which

they bred. Overall, 11 wader species have

contracted in range by more than 10%.

The situation is worse in Ireland. Of the 14

species that have bred there, only one has

shown a range expansion (Little Ringed

Plover has colonised since 1968–72)

whereas 13 species have contracted in

range. Greenshank, which was always very

rare, has disappeared whilst the ranges of

Black-tailed Godwit, Curlew, Woodcock and

Dunlin have contracted by 69% or more.

When mapped at the 10-km resolution

we can see that a species such as the

Beyond the ATLAS…1. REDSHANK BLUES

Breeding in a variety of damp habitats, including coastal marshes, lowland wet grasslands and rough pasture on moorland fringes, results in a patchy distribution which has become increasingly fragmented owing to a 43% range contraction in Britain since 1968–72. Losses are particularly evident in southern England and south-west and north-east Scotland. Away from coastal marshes, high densities are now confined to the Outer Hebrides and Northern Isles.

2. SYSTEMATIC COUNTING Atlas observers spent thousands of hours listing and counting birds in 2-km squares for ‘Timed Tetrad Visits’ in 2007–11, and similarly in 1988–91. Their data provide rigorous and systematic information on changes in relative abundance for individual species which can be combined to identify areas where breeding waders as a group are increasing or decreasing in abundance (reds and browns respectively).

3. GREENSHANK GAINS A close look at the distribution changes over the last c.40 years shows 10-km squares that have lost or gained breeding Greenshanks at different times (down-pointing and up-pointing triangles respectively), or retained them throughout (pink shading). Provided all these areas were sufficiently well surveyed in all periods, we can relate the pattern of gains and losses to information on environmental changes, to understand what has driven these changes.

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To the book and beyondFor months now, all eyes have been on the production of the definitive atlas book but, as SIMON GILLINGS explains, the data collected by atlas volunteers have much more to offer.

Facts Figures

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Curlew has been lost from 14% of squares

in Britain since 1988–91. Atlas data allow

us to look within the squares that have

retained Curlews. In 68% of cases Curlews

now occupy fewer tetrads than they did

20 years ago. In 1988–91, 48% of tetrads

in breeding areas were occupied whereas

only 36% are occupied now. On its own,

this sounds like a small change, but one of

the strengths of the Atlas is its multi-species

coverage. By calculating similar values for

all wader species it becomes possible to

make a composite map showing how tetrad

occupancy rates have changed by all wader

species. The resulting map (Figure 2) is

dominated by brown squares, indicating

all the regions where waders, as a group,

have declined. Scant few squares have

shown strong increases — the managed

washlands of the Fens are a clear exception.

Some regions, including the southern

uplands of Scotland have consistent and

strong declines. Others, such as the western

Highlands, show a more mixed pattern.

These are just some of the immediate

patterns and trends that appear on a

cursory examination of the data. There is

tremendous scope to analyse them more

formally to understand what drives the gains

and losses and why they have occurred

at different times in different places. Why

are the southern uplands of Scotland less

favourable for breeding waders? What

do species with positive trends have in

common? How successful is lowland wet

grassland management? Our aim for the

coming months is that these and many

other questions will be the focus of BTO

research as we capitalise on the investment

made by so many people to make the Atlas

such a success.

1. 110,000 3442The estimated UK breeding population of Oystercatcher is 110,000 pairs: Population Estimates of Birds in Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Musgrove et al. British Birds.

Only 34 BTO-ringed Whimbrels have been found abroad, half in France but with a total of nine in countries between Senegal and Nigeria www.bto.org/whim-recovery

In the period 1995 to 2011 the BBS index for Redshank dropped by 42%, with a further fall of 6% between 2011 and 2012.

43,000There are already nearly 43,000 records of Green Sandpiper in the BirdTrack database, with the species appearing on up to 11% of August lists www.birdtrack.net.

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BTO people

We are delighted that BTO membership is continuing to

go from strength to strength, with 2012 proving another

great year for recruitment and growth. One of the highlights

of the past year has been our first ever ‘Member get a

member campaign’. In 2012, over 430 new BTO members

were recruited by our own members through the course

of this campaign – this represented a fifth of all new

members recruited during the year. We introduced the

campaign with a postcard in our 2012 Annual Review and

news travelled quickly through social media, with Twitter

proving a particularly rich recruitment ground. Ian Gray, a

member from Edinburgh single-handedly recruited 28 new

members and at least 125 other members contributed too. In addition

to producing new recruits for the organisation, the campaign also acted

as a great way of building connections between new and existing

members. It is particularly pleasing and exciting that more than 90% of

members recruited via this campaign have renewed their membership

for 2013. If you helped us with this success – thank you!

AT OUR ANNUAL BTO Medal and Awards Reception we celebrate those who have made a significant contribution to ornithology and to communicating BTO science.

In 2012 the Dilys Breese Medal for outstanding communication of BTO activities to a wide audience was awarded to Sheena Harvey, former editor of BirdWatching Magazine. The Marsh Award for Ornithology was awarded to Professor Jerry Wilson, while the Herts Bird Club scooped the Marsh Local Ornithology Award. The ceremony was again

generously hosted by the Society of Wildlife Artists

at the Mall Galleries in London.

BRILLIANT BTO MEMBERS…GET MEMBERS

At our annual meeting of Regional Representatives (RRs) which was held in Carlisle in 2012 we celebrated the great work done by our RR for Hertfordshire, Chris Dee. Chris is an unstoppable volunteer surveyor, has been RR for 22 years and has recently joined our Regional Network Committee which oversees the work of the Network. In addition to being a BTO RR, Chris is also heavily involved as a member of the management board of Hertfordshire Bird Club.

BTO Supporters Honoured

Spotlight on BTO Medal winners 2012

Eve Tigwell has been the Somerset BTO

RR since 1991. As RR, Eve has brought

together conservation organisations from

across Somerset and heavily promoted

the regional aspects of working for the

BTO. In addition, Eve has also contributed

as a member of BTO’s Regional Network

Committee, BTO Council and Chairman of

the Pension Fund Trustees. Eve has made

an extraordinary front-line contribution to

conservation and ornithology, and a selfless

contribution to the backroom business of

the BTO. At our annual conference in 2012

Eve was awarded our Jubilee Medal in

honour of her committed devotion to the

Trust. At the same conference we celebrated

the amazing contributions of Tucker Medal

winner Mick Marquiss. Mick is a long-time

supporter of BTO work in Scotland, and a

rare example of a professional ornithologist

who remains closely involved with volunteer

fieldworkers. He was nominated in

recognition of his work as a member of the

Unconventional Methods Technical Panel

(UMTP). This Panel reports to the Ringing

Committee and considers applications for

unconventional trapping or marking projects.

Mick has served as a UMTP member since

its inception in the 1980s when a

few tens of applications were

considered each year. With the

availability of new technologies,

this has increased to a few

hundred a year.

►Crossbill is just one of the many species that Tucker Medal winner Mick Marquiss has worked on.

Our members and volunteers are our lifeblood, doing so much to support our work in so many different ways. Here we celebrate the contributions of some of you who have made a big impact on our work over recent and not so recent years – we salute you!

Help us get more members today!

Dear BTO member

Members like you understand the importance of our work and the role it plays in conservation. No one is better placed to help us with our next challenge.

With BTO membership at an all-time high, we really need your help to get us to our next major milestone - 17,000 members by the end of 2012.

Please help us by encouraging a friend, colleague or family member to join the BTO. Every new member makes us a bigger, stronger, more powerful BTO. Help us and you could win a unique BTO experience.

Thank you and happy birdwatching,

Ieuan Evans, Head of Membership & Volunteer Engagement Ph

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Multi-taxa research at the BTOConservation is not all about birds! GAVIN SIRIWARDENA explains more about a few of the many BTO science projects that focus on a range of other taxa at local, national and international scales.

It is increasingly common that conservation

and land management focus on wildlife other than

birds, both in its own right and as key components

of the ecosystems that support birds and mammals

(including humans) towards the tops of food chains.

This is, of course, entirely right: it is basic ecology that

various animals and plants are interdependent and we

can only understand one species or group properly if

we also understand the others on which it interacts

For these reasons, more and more of the BTO’s

science projects and monitoring are considering

other taxa as well as birds, or even entirely non-

avian problems. This is important strategically,

because it broadens the scope of our potential

research activities, as well as making our science

more rounded. In monitoring, we are doing this

by working with the various organizations with

specialist knowledge of the other groups and their

own, dedicated volunteers. In research, however,

we are now building our own multi-taxa field

capacity where, in the past we might have relied on

collaborators to conduct complementary, non-avian

research. We can then apply our long-standing study

design and analytical skills to projects involving these

other biodiversity priorities.

To date, this has been most apparent to BTO

members and supporters through the additional

surveys undertaken under the umbrellas of the

BBS and Garden BirdWatch, covering such groups

as mammals, butterflies, dragonflies, reptiles and

amphibians. However, currently, we are also working

on projects extending our professional bird research

(as opposed to volunteer surveys) in farmland and

urban habitats to consider other groups. We are

fortunate that many existing BTO staff are keen,

multi-skilled naturalists. We can also readily employ

people with non-bird skills just as we employ skilled

bird fieldworkers every year. The aim is both to

conduct good multi-taxa research now and also to

develop and to demonstrate the BTO’s expertise so

that we can attract more such work in the future.

In 2013, two different projects are in progress,

both funded by Defra. First, we are investigating

the effects of changes in street lighting on moths

in Birmingham, using both existing Garden Moth

Scheme data and new moth-trapping fieldwork

(see page 29). Second, we are in the second and

final year of a field project investigating relationships

between cropping patterns in farmland and multiple

components of biodiversity. This unique project

includes coordinated surveys of all the groups

around specific survey locations, so that associations

between different groups and between biodiversity

and land-use will be revealed. Further, it is part of

an international project, in which the same surveys

are being done by our French, German, Spanish and

Canadian partners.

We are surveying birds using point counts and

BBS transects, allowing us to link our results to

national patterns. Then, at the same points, we are

surveying within crops – at the edge and in the

middle of the field – for other taxa. We are looking at

plants and butterflies using visual surveys along short

transects, while ‘pitfall’ and ‘pan’ traps are recording

ground beetles, spiders, bees and hoverflies. We

are also doing specific experiments to examine how

efficiently the animal communities in each survey

area predate crop pests and pollinate flowers.

The scientific papers expected to arise from these

projects will demonstrate the BTO’s ability to work

more broadly than just on birds, so should help to

increase the scope of our work in years to come.

MULTI-TAXA projects for 20131. ONION FIELD TRAPS

The blue and white invertebrate cups (pan traps) mimic flowers to catch bees and hoverflies, while a pitfall trap dug into the soil, with a wooden roof, catches beetles and spiders.

2. BUFF ARCHES MOTH One of the moth species caught in new field research being conducted in partnership with the University of Birmingham into the effects of changes in street lighting on garden moths.

3. RED-TAILED BUMBLEBEE pollinating an experimental Cornflower. By placing flowers in the field for fixed periods and growing the plants on until they set seed, we can measure the pollination potential provided by the insects in that location.

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Bringing together global bird recording

The loss of the world’s biodiversity is

continuing at a rapid pace. Monitoring

bird populations can make a significant

contribution to arresting the losses,

because birds are good indicators of

ecosystem health, are fundamental in

identifying critically important areas

for conservation, and are one of the

few groups of organisms that can be

effectively monitored at a global scale.

However, we do not yet have systems

that enable efficient mobilisation of

the huge quantity of data on birds that

exists across the world. To meet this

challenge, the BTO is joining forces

with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology

(CLO) to develop a new global data

system of bird observations. We plan

to call this global data repository

‘Tringa’ – after this cosmopolitan

genus of birds with global-scale

movement patterns. Whilst BTO and

CLO are the founding developers of

Tringa we hope to bring together a

consortium of contributing partners

across the world, particularly enabling

An exciting collaboration, between BTO and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in the US, is enabling the development of a world-wide bird recording site, integrating BirdTrack and the American eBird system. ANDY CLEMENTS takes up the story.

the inclusion into Tringa of existing bird

recording schemes.

The foundations for Tringa are

BirdTrack and CLO’s eBird, highly

successful projects with strong track

records for engaging networks of skilled

volunteers who deliver high-quality

data for research in ornithology and

conservation science. In addition to

this expertise in volunteer engagement,

both CLO and BTO are leaders in

environmental data management, and

making available hundreds of millions

of bird observations via dynamic and

interactive data visualisations and

explorations. As the global consortium

grows, we will be able to build on

this start and provide a resource of

up-to-date maps, charts and other

visual outputs which will be useful

for decision-makers and conservation

practitioners, and will further inspire

birders to contribute their observations

from around the world through their

component recording schemes.

The last year has seen the

development of a flourishing

collaboration between the Cornell

Lab and BTO, and the commitment

of leadership and technical teams to

begin the work of bringing Tringa to

the bird recording community. We

have introduced the concept to our

partners in the UK and the Americas,

amongst our European bird census

partners, and across the global Birdlife

Partnership. Whilst there is a degree

of understandable realism and caution

in the community, there is excitement

too that Tringa will provide a high-

quality global platform while respecting

the operation of current country and

regional schemes across the world.

MORE TO GIVE In addition to the developments detailed here, we expect Tringa to

provide high-quality reference datasets for policy-relevant analyses and research that will make a

significant contribution to bird conservation. For example, we will be able to:

measure range and abundance changes and their relationships to climate- and land-use change;

quantify changes in migration patterns and identify the drivers of change;

provide detailed inventories of bird populations in Important Bird Areas (IBA);

produce the first dynamic global atlas of the birds of the world.

A new recording system being developed from BirdTrack and eBird (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) will allow birders to record their sightings from anywhere in the world

Work to date includes developing

the capability to share data from

eBird and BirdTrack, a crucial step in

demonstrating that existing schemes

from across the globe will be able to

contribute to Tringa. The visualisation

accompanying this article illustrates the

potential for maps and charts to present

our knowledge on the static page, but

many of these products really come

into their own through on-line animated

demonstrations of bird movements at

continental scales.


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TECHNOLOGY

At the time of writing, 11 Wildlife Trusts are already promoting Wild Walks, as part of a new initiative to collect records of birds and other taxa within the Trusts’ network of Living Landscapes. BTO staff have used experience gained from BirdTrack, Bird Atlas 2007–11 and Winter Thrushes to develop these schemes. To learn more and to find out if your local Trust has signed up, visit www.livingmap.org.uk

The Winter Thrushes Survey introduced hundreds of new volunteers to on-line mapping of their data. As well as saving the cost of inputting data that have been submitted on paper, the data from 3,100 different locations were immediately available for analysis. We aim to refine these systems for future surveys, whilst retaining the paper route when this is affordable.

BirdTrack is becoming an important element of BTO training courses. With two courses for professionals and 22 courses for volunteers during 2012–13, there were plenty of opportunities to introduce birdwatchers to BirdTrack at a variety of venues and habitats. Here’s a way to collect data for your local patch that can contribute to county-based and national conservation efforts.

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‘To meet this challenge, the BTO is joining forces with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (CLO) to develop a new global data system of bird observations. We plan to call this global data repository ‘Tringa’.

FIND OUT MORETo explore Tringa, and find out what has been achieved so far, visit http://tringaproject.org

Can you help?

Initially BTO and CLO, as founding

members of this project, are seeking

funding for a five-year project to

embed the Tringa data repository

and associated presentational and

analytical tools into the bird recording

community. Engaging partner

organisations across the globe, and

together providing high-quality data

services is a key aim for the future,

we hope others find this prospect as

exciting as we do. Contact us if you

wish to discuss this further.


Habitat: a changing picture

When I first took on the Common

Birds Census (CBC) for the well-wooded

Edgbaston Park in Birmingham, some

forty years ago, there were several pairs of

Starlings on the site. Thinking more crtitically

about what was actually happening, the only

reason that the birds were associating with

the woodland was a need to find nesting

holes. For these birds, the chick-rearing

potential of the site was actually provided by

the playing fields, golf course and amenity

land that was close-by. The trees had exactly

the same nest-site function as the eaves of

houses or dry-stone walls in other areas.

BTO surveys continually challenge

our understanding of the habitats that

birds use. The most obvious changes are

probably occurring in residential areas,

with an increasing range of species making

use of the opportunities we provide.

Woodpigeons, for instance, have continued

their colonisation of new habitats, a trend first

noted in the last quarter of the nineteenth

century. Up until 1837–63 they were found

“in all the wooded and enclosed parts”

according to Yarrell. Since Garden BirdWatch

was launched in 1995, Woodpigeons have

increased their reporting rate from an annual

Each generation of birdwatchers develops its own fixed ideas as to what constitutes appropriate habitats for a range of species. GRAHAM APPLETON reflects on BTO studies that challenge our assumptions.

maximum of 60% of gardens to 90%, no

doubt encouraged by the availability of seed

and the presence of suitable nest sites.

Other species are looking for other things; for

Blackcap, for instance, one of the key features

sought in gardens in winter is thought to

be warmth; it will be interesting to see the

results of last winter’s GBW Blackcap Survey

with this in mind. The pattern described by

Phil Hollom in the Popular Handbook of

British Birds in 1952 may still be apparent: “It

winters occasionally in England and Wales,

fairly often in Ireland, very rarely in Scotland”

but at much higher levels of abundance.

We have learnt to adapt BTO surveys

to try to keep up with the way that birds

change the niches that they use. The 2012

Nightingale Survey was nowhere near as

focused upon coppice as the 1999 survey

had been, simply because we had learned

also to look in scrubby corners, especially

associated with the growth that takes place

when a brownfield site has been left to its

own devices for a decade or two. Along

the Fenland/Breckland edge in East Anglia,

Nightingales may well now be found

breeding in the scrubby under storey of pine

shelter-belts alongside potato fields with

breeding Yellow Wagtails – a very different

situation to forty years ago. In 1826, Thomas

Bewick described the habitat of Yellow

Wagtails as “invariably associated with water

… damp water meadows and marshy fields

along river valleys and freshwater marshes on

the coast”, which chimes with my memories

of the 1970s, but he went on to say “among

the green corn where it frequently nests”.

Perhaps well-irrigated potato fields are not

that strange for Yellow Wagtails, after all.

The biggest changes to habitats are

occuring at a landscape scale, as in the

reforestation of southern Scotland, for

instance. Looking at the maps that will

appear in Bird Atlas 2007–11, it is easy

to focus on the negative – the changing

distribution of wader species in this area

– but the trees bring shelter, structure and

feeding opportunities for a wide variety of

other species, from Coal Tits to Goshawks. It

will be interesting to analyse how such regional

habitat changes are having effects on national

populations of warblers and to consider

associations between changes for species using

similar niches, as reflected in the increased

abundance of Blackbirds and the decline in

numbers of Ring Ouzel, for instance.

Bird Atlas 2007–11, with its twenty-year

stock-take of the UK’s and ireland’s birds,

provides a valuable backdrop to the work of

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“The successful conservation of bird species relies upon our understanding of their habitat use and requirements. In the coming decades the importance of such knowledge will only grow, as climate change and the needs of human populations intensify the already significant pressures on the habitats that birds depend on.”

Rob Fuller, Birds and Habitat: Relationships in Changing Landscapes, Cambridge University Press, 2012

IN PRINT

the BTO’s Land-use Research Team, especially

with the supporting evidence provided by

the annual BBS. The Team has been building

on existing BTO strengths in farmland bird

research whilst also focusing on woodland,

upland and urban systems, and broadening

the scope of research to include other

taxa and ecosystem services. Some of the

agri-environment research in which they are

involved aims to recreate a habitat mix that can

support farmland birds. A high-profile paper in

the Journal of Applied Ecology provides the first

evidence of population benefits of broad-and-

shallow agri-environment management at the

national scale. This paper is having high impact

in the ongoing process of agri-environment

scheme (AES) revision in England, as the

Common Agricultural Policy is reformed.

Meanwhile, further bird AES research (a Defra-

funded collaboration with CEH) is measuring

the benefits of a new option involving direct

supplementary feeding of birds – artificially

increasing habitat quality and increasing over

winter survival. BTO review work underpins a

recently launched online ’Bird Environmental

Stewardship Tool’ which aims to provide

evidence-based advice to farmers and land-

managers looking to designing AES agreements

to optimise benefits for birds.

Looking at some HABITAT habits…

2. 3.


1. YELLOW WAGTAIL Although the number of 10-km squares in which breeding was confirmed or probable only dropped from 759 to 664 between 1988–91 and 2008–11, the distribution of Yellow Wagtails changed markedly, reflecting more use of lowland, arable habitat.

2. LINNET Thousand-strong flocks of Linnet can now be found on fields that are specifically cultivated to deliver winter seed, using mixes such as small-grained cereals, fodder raddish, mustard, Camelina, Phacelia, fat-hen and millet.

3. BULLFINCH Reports from BTO volunteers in the Birmingham area suggest that Bullfinches have learnt to bring their newly-fledged offspring to garden ‘fast-food restaurants’, somewhat at odds with the species’ previous shy and retiring reputation.

FIND OUT MOREBaker, D. J., et al. 2012. Landscape-scale responses of birds to agri-environment management: a test of the English Environmental Stewardship scheme. Journal of Applied Ecology, 49, 871–882.


Getting our message out thereThere are many different ways to promote the work of the BTO, says PAUL STANCLIFFE. Targeted press releases to chosen audiences work well, as does highlighting a survey or a BTO project on national TV, but more often than not it is radio that serves us best.

By their very nature, press releases

have to be short, sharp and focused;

a busy journalist might receive two

hundred press release emails a day. TV

is even more focused, as a rule it takes

two hours of filming for every minute of

a finished product.

PAUL SETS THE SCENE...So, when I was approached to do a

programme with Brett Westwood on the

Golden Pheasants in Thetford Forest,

it didn’t take too much thinking about.

The programme would highlight the

BTO monitoring of non-native species,

the changing status of Golden Pheasant

through the Bird Atlas 2007—11 and

the expertise that the BTO can offer.

The programme would not only need

recordings of calling males in their

‘natural’ habitat but they would also

need to be seen - not an easy ask for

a species that spends most of its life in

the shadows!

However, armed with a ‘fairly

reliable’ site courtesy of the BTO’s John

Marchant, the beginning of November

saw me visiting the site to begin to

get a handle on what the birds were

doing and where they might be. John

didn’t think that they would be very

vocal at this time and he was right:

it took another eight visits in freezing

temperatures until I heard two short

distant calls in mid January. After that

‘first contact’ it was another three weeks,

in even colder temperatures (-11oC on

one evening) before I heard my next

Golden Pheasant. The whole episode

lasted for around three minutes but

stopped long before I could work out

which forestry block they might be in. It

was to be yet another month before the

birds started to call again. Mid February

seemed to hold a trigger for the males

to start calling in earnest, even though

it was very, very cold. By the end of the

month I had identified a couple of areas

that held two males each. The scene was

set; all that was needed was for the birds

to ‘perform’ for the radio:

..AND THE BBC’S VIEWWithout the dedication of Paul Stancliffe

who’s not just a Media Officer, but

an experienced field naturalist too, I

wouldn’t have dreamed of tackling a

subject as tricky as the Golden Pheasant.

Even with his meticulous preparation,

it was touch-and-go as to whether we

would see this notoriously elusive bird.

To make it work for Radio’s 4’s Living

World, we needed other elements to

the story in case we failed to record

the birds. Paul responded immediately

by finding a stained glass window in a

nearby church which depicted Golden

Pheasants, proving that they’re part of

the local avian scene and setting up the

bird’s mystique. As a failsafe he also

located a captive bird at a public aviary in

nearby Bury St Edmunds which allowed

us a close encounter early on in the

programme.

As it happened, although we did

use the window and captive bird in

the final edit, we needn’t have worried.

Two resplendent male pheasants and,

the icing on the cake – a female –

duly obliged at the location Paul had

pinpointed. The result was one of the

most enjoyable Living World programmes

I’ve been involved with, and a testament

to building a story with the help of

knowledgeable professionals.

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Brett Westwood Radio producer/presenter, BBC Natural History Radio

‘I had identified a couple of areas that held two males each. The scene was set; all that was needed was for the birds to ‘perform’ for the radio.’


1. MOST GOLDEN PHEASANTS are not as confiding as this magnificent male. You can listen to The Living World programme on www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01s38s0. Share the suspense and then the excitement as the soundman records the moment when Paul Stancliffe’s patient work delivers for BBC’s Brett Westwood.

2. TWITTER IS ANOTHER very successful avenue for BTO. We sent out over 7,000 tweets last year which achieved almost 97,000,000 potential impressions. Our twitter following grew by over 6,000 followers and currently stands at 17,500. Our most popular tweet read: @_BTO: Ho ho ho here’s to the Santa Robin, a very festive bird snapped as part of @BTO_GBW Abnormal Plumage Survey. This tweet was retweeted 30 times and read by 275,000 people.

3. IT’S ALWAYS SATISFYING when the work that we do attracts the interest of people working in other arenas. There is often much to be gained from crossing those imaginary boundaries between interests and disciplines. We were delighted when a team from Engineering & Technology Magazine paid us a visit to learn more about our Cuckoo-tracking work. The team filmed an in-depth interview with lead scientist Dr Chris Hewson.

3.

1.

Our MEDIA darlings…

Joined-up SURVEYING


Ringing it all together

The beautiful, windswept landscape of

South Uist, with its peat bogs and summer-

flowering machair, may, at first, seem to

have little in common with the verdant

oakwoods of Devon; other than that they

both seem about as far away from the

BTO’s HQ in Thetford as it is possible to get

and still remain in Britain! What links these

two disparate locations are the ringers

who are using their ringing in support of

the BTO’s Demographic Targeting Strategy

which we launched during the year.

Mention a ‘strategy’ and immediately eyes

start to glaze… however, key to those aims

are individual projects, each of which is

fascinating in its own right.

Ian Thompson and Yvonne Benting are

colour-ringing the House Sparrows that visit

their garden in Askernish, South Uist. They

started relatively recently (November 2010)

but by the end of 2012 they had already

ringed 441 birds, each of which is individually

identifiable without the need to recapture it.

House Sparrows are legendary for not being

all that adventurous. And the Askernish birds

live up to their reputation, with 40% of the

resightings coming from the garden of their

neighbour, Bill Neill, a wildlife artist and

naturalist, only 200 yards away. Young birds,

however, have been reported at sites covering

the length of the Uists, with the furthest

travelling more than 30 miles.

At the other end of the country, Malcolm

Burgess is also interested in dispersal but,

in this case, in Pied Flycatchers, an iconic

denizen of our western oakwoods. Malcolm

works primarily in the East Dartmoor NNR,

and his nestbox project in Yarner Wood is

the third-longest-running in the country,

having started in 1955, but ‘his’ birds would

sometimes be recaught by others operating

nearby. Bringing together these local projects

(all 22 of them) gave birth to the Southwest

Pied Flycatcher Monitoring Network. Not only

does the network allow Malcolm to study

the lifetime consequences of dispersal, it has

also prevented the loss of valuable historic

data, which are now all computerised. The

British ringers and nest recorders operate from the tip of Cornwall to the offshore northern islands, and everywhere in-between, and their hard work brings benefits to a whole host of different BTO research as ROB ROBINSON and DAVE LEECH report.

group is training new people to take over

projects as their original monitors begin to

retire.

While these two projects, and many

others like them, are providing valuable results

in their own right, they also make a critical

contribution to the BTO’s monitoring efforts

through the Retrapping Adults for Survival

(RAS) Scheme. This is where that Strategy

comes in. Ringing birds and re-encountering

them subsequently, either by recatching them

or finding them dead, provides the only way

of measuring their chances of surviving from

one year to the next. Knowing these helps

us to understand how and why our bird

populations are changing. Changes in survival

rates are some of the key reasons why

populations might start declining; identifying

these helps to design effective conservation

measures. However, catching and, more

importantly, recatching or resighting, enough

individuals to estimate survival rates, takes

patience and a lot of effort. Our Demographic

Strategy was developed in order to guide

ringers, and others, on the most useful

species to study. In doing this, we believe that

ten studies on one species are better than

one study on ten species. This is because

comparing studies in different areas provides

a powerful method of identifying drivers of

population change.

The ethos of the Demographic Targeting Strategy is that it pulls together the results from across the range of BTO surveys in the interest of identifying the drivers of population change, so you don’t need to hold a ringing permit to contribute. Nest Record Scheme participants provide information on the breeding success of over 130 species per year; data from garden nest boxes help us to understand how Blue Tit populations cope with urban habitats in a changing climate, while those volunteers skilled at finding

open nests enable the impacts of grazing pressure and habitat degradation further afield to be explored. Birders work alongside ringers to resight colour-ringed individuals, generating high-quality survival-rate estimates, while thousands more count numbers of birds on their BBS squares, providing essential data on population trends. It is this holistic approach that makes Britain’s bird populations among the most comprehensively monitored in the world. And we have our volunteers to thank for that.

1.


‘What links these two disparate species are the ringers who are using their ringing in support of the BTO’s Demographic Targeting Strategy.’

Intensive demographic studies focusing on declining species are not the sole preserve of ringers. Meadow Pipit numbers have declined by more than 25% in the last 50 years, with potentially severe implications for this unassuming passerine and species such as Merlin and Cuckoo that depend on it for food and chick-rearing respectively. A fall in Nest Record Scheme submissions from 400 per year in the mid 1980s to just 50 by 2005 made it difficult to determine the role breeding success has played in this collapse, but thankfully record numbers have risen again to over 300, thanks to efforts by recorders such as Mark Lawrence, Mark Penney and Dave Scott, who monitored 116 Meadow Pipit nests in Devon during 2012.

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Mipits on the moors

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1. HOUSE SPARROW BTO data have shown that many species are doing better in Scotland than England. For example, it will be fascinating to see whether Yvonne and Ian’s House Sparrows, in their northern fastness of Uist, fare better or worse than those being studied by Jo Lashwood in arable East Anglia, or Denise Wawman in rural Somerset.

2. PIED FLYCATCHER Many birds are breeding earlier but migrants may not be able to do this easily due to the timings of their migrations and their inability to change those timings. What impact will this have in the future? With nearly 20 RAS studies on Pied Flycatchers, ringers are helping to understand how migratory birds might be affected by climate change.

The effects of Cormorant control are not clear cut Britain’s Garden BirdWatchers play an important role in monitoring emerging diseases

Over recent decades, there has been

a sizeable increase in the number of

Cormorants breeding and wintering at

inland sites in the UK. This expansion has

brought the species into conflict with some

commercial fisheries. In response to this

apparent conflict, licences have been issued

in England for the control of birds at fisheries

where they are causing serious damage,

the licence to shoot a limited number of

birds being viewed as an aid to scaring other

individuals away from the site. Licences were

issued to kill up to 3,000 birds per year for

two years from 2004, with licences issued

for up to 2,000 birds to be killed annually

thereafter.

New research by the BTO, on behalf of

Defra, has examined whether this control

has caused any changes in Cormorant

numbers on WeBS sites, especially those

located within Special Protection Areas

(SPAs) that have been designated to protect

particular species under the European Birds

Directive.

Although there has been a decrease in

Cormorant population growth nationally

since the mid 2000s, there was no evidence

that killing Cormorants during one winter

affected numbers at local sites the following

winter. However, some results indicated that

Cormorant population growth was associated

New collaborative research between the

Zoological Society of London, Oxford University,

RSPB and BTO has used information collected

by BTO Garden BirdWatch volunteers to

document the emergence and spread of a

severe form of avian pox virus in British tits.

Most of the cases involved Great Tits, with other

reports coming from Blue and Coal Tits. By

using reports of affected birds, submitted by the

general public since 2006, it has been possible

to establish how the disease has spread and to

identify its likely point of arrival in Britain.

Avian pox has been known in other garden

birds, including Dunnock and Blackbird,

since at least the 1950s. However, the strain

first seen in British tits in 2006 is different

and causes more serious symptoms. Its

transmission also appears to be independent

from that present in non-tit species. Avian

pox is thought to be spread primarily by biting

insects, resulting in peak levels of disease

incidence in late summer, particularly following

warm, wet weather when insect population

densities are high.

Examination of the pattern of reports, both

over time and across the country, suggests

that avian pox in Great Tits has spread from

an origin in south-east England. Use of the

weekly BTO Garden BirdWatch records has

allowed us to control for any change in the

distribution of Great Tits themselves that might

with higher-intensity control (although this

was not seen on SPAs). One explanation

for this positive relationship could be that

disturbance caused by control increases

Cormorant dispersal, leading to apparent

population growth at the wider site level.

Alternatively, the results may reflect the fact

that control measures are often reactive,

with licences granted in response to local

increases in Cormorant numbers.

Due to the potential for increased Cormorant

movements following control, both at

larger scales and between unmonitored

and monitored sites, these findings do not

provide evidence as to whether control has

influenced the national population trend.

Further work is needed to improve Cormorant

monitoring outside the studied WeBS sites

and to research their population dynamics,

movements and behaviour. The key questions

of whether Cormorant control has the desired

effect of reducing predation at fisheries, and

how cost-effective it is compared to other

measures, remain to be answered.

FIND OUT MOREChamberlain, D.E., Austin, G.E., Newson, S.E., Johnston, A. & Burton, N.H.K. (2013). Licensed control does not reduce local Cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo population size in winter. Journal of Ornithology 154: 739-750

1. FISHERIES MANAGEMENT 2. CATCHING NEW & EMERGING DISEASES


Scientific research in 2012 & 2013In the triptych below, NIALL BURTON, ANDY CLEMENTS, VIOLA ROSS-SMITH and MIKE TOMS present more fascinating stories that have emerged from BTO work in the last 12 months, demonstrating the wide range of research in which BTO scientists are involved.

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Scientists and policy-makers working togetherBritain’s Garden BirdWatchers play an important role in monitoring emerging diseases

Science plays an important role beyond

simply providing information about the world

around us. Increasingly, the understanding

and use of science is being recognised for the

role that it plays in shaping government policy

and delivery, with good-quality science being

used to provide an ‘evidence base’ on which

decisions can be made. Indeed, evidence-

based policy is the aspiration in many fields

and we are now seeing scientists engaged at a

senior level within many governments.

Science and policy are not necessarily easy

bedfellows, however, and there have been

occasions – such as the acrimonious debate

over the science of climate change – where

the relationship experiences troubled times.

Such difficulties underline the complexities of

science–policy interactions and highlight that

there is still much to learn about the nature of

scientific authority and the processes by which

policies are developed to improve delivery.

The Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI),

in which BTO is a founding partner, attempts

to work at the research–policy interface. In an

attempt to improve and inform the debate

surrounding the science–policy agenda,

Sutherland et al. brought together researchers,

policy-makers and practitioners with interests in

the relations between science and policy. The

results of this exercise are a series of research

questions, questions that can be tested and the

answers then used to inform the science–policy

agenda. Many of the questions are practical

in nature – for example, ‘How is agreement

reached on what counts as sufficient evidence to

inform particular policy decisions?’ – and should

allow scientists to better understand how their

results are used and interpreted within policy-

making. In addition, a grouping broader than CCI,

including BTO, publishes an annual digest of the

legislative issues informing researchers of the up-

to-date policy context in which they work.

An understanding of the science–policy

agenda is important to organisations like the BTO,

whose monitoring outputs provide an evidence

base for both conservation actions and policy

decisions. Knowledge of how these outputs are

used, and within what framework, can help us

present evidence in ways that are most relevant

for different audiences. Equally, it is important

for policy-makers to understand the nature of

the evidence base to which we are contributing,

so that they can make informed decisions.

Collectively then, both scientists and policy-

makers are likely to benefit from working closer

together and developing a better understanding of

the sphere in which each other operates.

bias our interpretation of the apparent pattern

of disease spread.

Although birds can recover from the pox

virus, the lesions it causes may impair vision

and the ability to feed, as well as leaving

affected individuals susceptible to secondary

infections and predation.

This study illustrates the power of

collaborative research and the value of citizen

science in characterising and studying wildlife

diseases. It also underlines the importance

of continued vigilance and the reporting of

illnesses in wild animals, as where avian

pox and other emerging diseases (such as

finch trichomonosis) lead, others may follow.

A new web-based system for reporting

dead and diseased wildlife – which is also

a collaborative initiative – has just been

launched. This brings together systematic

weekly recording through Garden BirdWatch

and opportunistic submissions from a wider

audience, something that should greatly

enhance our understanding of wildlife disease

in Britain.

FIND OUT MORE

Sutherland, W.J., et al. (2011). What are the forth-coming legislative issues of interest to ecologists and conservationists in 2011? Bulletin of the BES 42: 26–31.

FIND OUT MORELawson, B., Lachish, S., Colvile, K.M., Durrant, C., Peck, K.M., Toms, M.P, Sheldon, B.C. & Cunningham, A.A. (2012). Emergence of a novel avian pox disease in British tit species. PLoS One 7, e40176.

Garden Wildlife Health – www.gardenwildlifehealth.org

2. CATCHING NEW & EMERGING DISEASES 3. CONTRIBUTING TO THE EVIDENCE BASE


Behind the IMAGES…1. CONTROVERSIAL CORMORANTS

Lakes, reservoirs and rivers in the UK support Cormorants from a number of populations. Coastal breeding carbo and continental sinensis join birds of both races that breed by inland waters.

2. GREAT TIT WITH AVIAN POX

The pox spreading through the Great Tit population was first identified in England in 2006. Work led by Dr Becki Lawson of ZSL has shown that it was likely brought here by biting insects.

3. ISOLATED PTARMIGAN

Bird Atlas 2007–11 reveals the latest distribution of Ptarmigan and other mountain-top species. The new ‘What’s Up?’ project aims to monitor these sensitive species on an annual basis.

Independent Auditor’s Statement to The Members of The British Trust for Ornithology

We have examined the summarised financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2013 set out [right]. The Council Members are responsible for preparing the summarised financial statements in accordance with applicable United Kingdom law and the recommendations of the Charities SORP. Our responsibility is to report to you our opinion on the consistency of the summarised financial statements with the full annual financial statements and the Council Annual Report. We also read other information contained in the summarised annual report and consider the implications for our report if we become aware of any apparent misstatements or material inconsistencies with the summarised financial statements. We conducted our work in accordance with Bulletin 2008/3 issued by the Auditing Practices Board. In our opinion the summarised financial statements are consistent with the full annual financial statements and the Council Annual Report of The British Trust For Ornithology for the year ended 31 March 2013.

LOVEWELL BLAKE LLPChartered Accountants and Statutory AuditorBankside 300, Peachman Way, Broadland Business Park, Norwich. NR7 0LB 31 July 2013

Summarised ACCOUNTS 2012/13This year’s accounts were significantly affected by the decision to close the final salary pension scheme to future accrual, which resulted in a credit to operating expenditure from the FRS17 valuation of £1,111k. This gave an overall operating surplus of £1,155k. The surplus excluding the pension credit was £44k (2012: £192k deficit). The principal funding sources continued to be research and surveys (£2,183k), membership and communications (£1,141k), and

trading and consultancy (including BTO Services Ltd turnover) (£764k). Appeals raised £400k, and £230k was received from legacies. A total of £4,212k was spent during the year on carrying out, supporting and communicating ornithological research. There was a gain of £56k in the market value of investments, in line with the general rise in the stock market, but an actuarial loss of £468k in the pension scheme, due to continued weakening of bond yields.

2012/13 2011/12Incoming resources £’000 £’000General donations 157 75

Appeals 400 346

Legacies 230 215

Trading and consultancy 764 948

Royalties and copyright 120 123

Other income 51 60

Membership and communications 1,141 1,111

Research and surveys 2,183 1,677

Total incoming resources 5,046 4,555

Resources expendedCosts of generating voluntary income 174 142

Costs of activities for generating funds 575 711

Membership, volunteers and communications 1,173 1,400

Research and surveys 3,039 2,457

Governance costs 41 37

Total resources expended 5,002 4,747

Defined benefit pension scheme closure 1,111 ––

Net incoming/(outgoing) resources 1,155 -192

Other recognised losses -412 -1,497

Net movement in funds 743 -1,689

Total funds brought forward 313 2,002

Total funds carried forward 1,056 313

Represented by:Fixed assets 1,684 1,638

Net current assets 1,163 1,198

Amounts falling due after one year -22 -22

Pension fund liability -1,769 -2,501

TOTAL 1,056 313

BTOAnnualReview | 201326

BTO Accounts 2012/13Council aims to minimise the impact of a tough Government spending round on levels of contract income and will look for additional unrestricted income in order to continue and develop key programmes.

Diversification of income was delivered through the development of a broader spectrum of funding streams, including a new appeal for core funds in autumn 2012, which attracted significant support. A total of £66,000 (including Gift Aid) was received immediately with promises of £14,000 (plus Gift Aid). The money is supporting the development of BirdTrack, the launch of a new ringing-based project and further Nightingale, chat and thrushes research.

Research contracts remain the largest source of funding for the BTO, and there was a significant increase in the volume of contract work undertaken during the year, with the increase coming in publicly funded, rather than commercial, contracts. Membership income is an increasingly important element of the funding for core work, such as the BTO’s contributions to the JNCC partnership, and we are grateful to people who add regular donations to their monthly or annual subscriptions.

The Trust depends on the contributions of many thousands of volunteers who participate in surveys and other activities. We are greatly indebted to them, and especially to the Regional Representatives and other regional volunteers who organise so much BTO activity at a local level. It was estimated that BTO volunteers contributed the equivalent of 174,000 days of work in 2012.

INCOME 2012/13

INCOME 2011/12

43% Research & surveys

37% Research & surveys

3% General donations

1% General donations

8% Appeals

8% Appeals

5% Legacies

5% Legacies

15% Trading & consultancy

21% Trading & consultancy

23% Membership & communications

24% Membership & communications

1% Other income

1% Other income

2% Royalties & copyright

3% Royalties & copyright

EXPENDITURE 2012/13

EXPENDITURE 2011/12

1% Governance costs

1% Governance costs

3% Costs of generating voluntary income

3% Costs of generating voluntary income

12% Costs of activities

for generating funds

15% Costs of activities

for generating funds

61% Research and surveys

52% Research and surveys

23% Membership, volunteer and

communications

29% Membership, volunteer and

communications

These summarised accounts have been extracted from the Trust’s annual accounts. They may not contain sufficient information to provide a full understanding of the financial affairs of the Trust. For further information, the full accounts, the auditor’s report and the Council (Trustees’) Report should be consulted. These are available on the BTO web site (www.bto.org/about-bto/accounts) and hard copies are available on request from the Director of Services, BTO, The Nunnery, Thetford, Norfolk IP24 2PU.

The annual accounts were approved by Council on 10 July 2013 and have been submitted to the Registrar of Companies, the Charity Commission and the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator. The accounts include the auditor’s report which is unqualified and does not

contain a statement either under section 498(2) of the Companies Act 2006 (accounting records or returns inadequate or accounts not agreeing with the records and returns) or section 498(3) (failure to obtain information and explanations).

FURTHER INFORMATION

2013 | BTOAnnualReview 27

Facts Figures

&

729

7.0%

ACCOUNTS

The amount of volunteer effort dropped, with the end of fieldwork for Bird Atlas 2007–11, but was still equivalent to having a paid workforce of 729 full-time staff, with an estimated value of £26.1 million.

433 new members recruited through the ‘Member get a member’ scheme, made a significant contribution to a rise in membership of 7.0% between 2011 and 2012.

Of the 13 legacies we learned about in 2012/13, nine came from BTO members. Legacy income in the year was £230k.

The number of new people who joined our Garden BirdWatch scheme in 2012. Participants pay an annual fee of £17 to be part of this all-year citizen-science project.

Our working relationship with Gardman and Ernest Charles yielded £120,000 for the BTO, through sales of BTO-endorsed goods such as bird food and feeders. This income is used to underpin the core work of the Trust.

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‘We are seeking to enhance the BTO’s fundraising capability in order to address issues identified by Bird Atlas 2007–11, to expand our online recording and to meet the continuing desire to set our own research priorities.’JOHN OSMOND, HON. TREASURER

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A single donation of £10,000 will enable BTO scientists to initiate research into changes in range and abundance, using data from Bird Atlas 2007–11.

APEP – putting a number on Britain’s birds Assisting seabirds on Copeland

The BTO aims to provide authoritative

information about the status of UK birds. We

can do this through the production of trends;

for example, the BBS tells us that Skylark

populations have fallen 22% during 1995–

2011. But there are cases where it is useful

to know about absolute numbers; how

many Skylarks does this represent?

The Avian Population Estimates Panel

(APEP) comprises representatives from BTO,

RSPB, WWT, JNCC and GWCT. The panel

aims to collate the most recent authoritative

estimates for birds in Great Britain and the

United Kingdom. Following two previous

reviews (Stone et al. 1997, Baker et al. 2006),

a third collation (APEP3) was published in

2013 by the journal British Birds (Musgrove

et al. 2013, available at www.britishbirds.

co.uk/birding-resources/key-refs).

APEP3 sought estimates for all species

proved breeding at least once from 2006

onwards. Additionally, winter estimates

were sought for relevant species. Separate

estimates for subspecies were collated

where possible. Many estimates were

sourced from separate studies, but for most

common breeding species new estimates

were generated by extrapolating earlier ones

using the BBS trends.

Overall, APEP3 found about 84 million

pairs of breeding birds in the UK (79

million in GB). The Wren remains the most

numerous (c.10% of the total), with 23

species surpassing one million pairs. In

contrast, the combined breeding populations

of the 100 rarest species collectively total

about 0.1%.

APEP3 provides an unparalleled

assessment of our avifauna, built almost

entirely on a solid foundation of volunteer

fieldwork. As would be expected, the panel

identified those estimates most in need

of improvement, including groups such

as breeding ducks, owls and wintering

passerines, alongside individual species

such as Rock Pipit, Kingfisher and Sand

Martin. Importantly, the panel stressed that

improving our state of knowledge is not the

sole preserve of large surveys organised by

BTO and others, but can in many cases be

aided significantly by local volunteer studies.

And in answer to the question above, we

lost about 375,000 pairs of Skylarks in the

UK between 1995 and 2011.

BTO has, over the past two years, been part

of a team working towards the enhancement

of the Copeland Islands, Co Down, as a

location for breeding seabirds. Working with

our partners in Natural Copeland – Copeland

Bird Observatory (CBO), RSPB, Ards Borough

Council, NIEA, the Police Service of Northern

Ireland, Island Guardians, and a Big Copeland

representative, as well as with Birdwatch

Ireland and National Trust, BTO (specifically

Shane Wolsey, BTO Ireland Officer and Kerry

Leonard, BTO NI Seabird Coordinator) has

advised on the development of a long-term

strategy to improve the breeding success of

seabirds on the islands.

Initial success saw the movement of

Ireland’s largest Arctic Tern colony from an

area of high disturbance and low productivity

to Lighthouse Island. Here, less disturbance

and some active management has enabled

two years of much improved productivity. The

movement of the colony was encouraged

through the use of decoys and solar-powered

sound attraction systems.

The same methods have been used to

encourage the establishment of a new Puffin

colony on Lighthouse Island. Within 10 days

of deploying the decoys, Puffins arrived

and started investigating burrows. In 2012 a

maximum of 50 Puffins were at the site, and

in 2013 over 100 have been seen. Breeding

has not yet been confirmed, but it now

seems likely in the near future.

2. IRISH seabirds1. Four-and-twenty BLACKBIRDS?


PartnershipsHelping to spread the BTO’s message by working with charity and academic partners. Each provides a way to put our conservation and research messages in front of new audiences.

Could you resist? Dummy Puffins and sound recordings are being used to tempt potential breeders to Lighthouse Island, Copeland.

Packing a powerful punch. Although Wren numbers can be badly hit by hard winters, this tiny bird is our most common species, with one in 10 of all breeding birds in the UK being Wrens.

Into the future with NBN

We have been recording observations of

wildlife in the UK for centuries, whether for

reasons of science, conservation or simple

curiosity. Records were initially stored and

disseminated on paper but the increase

in computing, coupled with the internet

revolution, has led to an exponential growth

in records and channels of dissemination.

The sheer mass of records can at times

appear overwhelming. In response, the

National Biodiversity Network (NBN) was

initiated in 2000, as a partnership between

a number of different organisations with the

broad aim of collating records from a variety

of sources and making them available for

further uses.

The NBN’s main ‘front end’ is the

Gateway (data.nbn.org.uk), which allows a

user to request species maps and (in some

cases) to download the underlying data.

The Gateway includes some important BTO

datasets, notably the 10-km-resolution data

for the 1968–72 and 1988–91 Breeding

Atlases and the 1981–84 Winter Atlas. More

recently we have uploaded distributional

records from the BBS and are in discussions

regarding BirdTrack data.

In 2012, a consultation on a series of

proposed changes to the NBN data access

controls resulted in some concerns being

raised by a number of data providers,

including BTO. Some of the main concerns

revolved around misinterpretation of data

by third parties, loss of income to smaller

recording communities (such as bird clubs)

and issues surrounding intellectual property.

The Gateway was relaunched in late 2012,

although this has clearly been a major

technical challenge and there remain some

significant problems to resolve.

In some circles, there has been a feeling

that the NBN has been driven mostly by

the requirements of governmental end

users, with less regard given to the needs

and motivations of the primary data

generators, i.e. individual recorders such as

BTO volunteers. Partly in recognition of this

perceived imbalance, the BTO’s Director,

Andy Clements, was invited onto the NBN’s

Board of Trustees in early 2013, to help

advise on rebalancing the needs of data

providers and users. We are confident we

can look forward to a continuing fruitful

relationship with the NBN.

3. Relaunching a national ONLINE RESOURCE


Facts Figures

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PARTNERSHIPS

The number of ways in which BTO is researching the impacts of the new brighter, more energy-efficient LED streetlights that are replacing existing lighting. Firstly we are using information collected by Garden Moth Scheme volunteers to measure the effects of lighting on moth abundance and diversity, and secondly we are collecting new field data to examine how moth communities respond to lighting changes.

Research by Philippa Gullett (University of Sheffield), in collaboration with BTO, shows the Long-tailed Tit nesting season has shortened by five days in the last decade. Although slightly highertemperatures in March mean individuals are laying earlier, warmer Aprils may mean reduced food availability and fewer opportunities for renesting.

The Google Adwords programme for non-profit organisations has supported us with £18,500 worth of free Google search advertising between 1 April 2012 and 31 March 2013. Find out more about Google Adwords and how they work by visiting: https://adwords.google.co.uk/

£18,500 BTO shares records from some surveys with National Biodiversity Network, and has been involved

in ensuring that the balance between the needs of end users and data providers is maintained.

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‘The National Biodiversity Network (NBN) was initiated in 2000, a partnership between a number of different organisations with the broad aim of collating records from a variety of sources and making them available for further uses.’


◄ Redwing (Winter Thrushes Survey) and Nightjar: studies of both of these species were supported by our corporate partners during 2012/13.

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CORPORATE SUPPORT FOR TRACKING & SURVEYS

Birds and BusinessOne of the key elements of the BTO’s work with business is the development of long-term relationships, explains BONITA JOHNSTON

CUCKOO TRACKINGCorporate support for the Cuckoo tracking

programme this year came from two major

funders, Essex & Suffolk Water and the

Sound Approach. Difficult weather during

the autumn migration clearly affected the

journeys of many of the Cuckoos tagged in

2012, especially the ones using the westerly

route through Spain and West Africa.

Although sad to lose so many birds, we may

be starting to explain why numbers are in

decline, especially as the western route was

favoured only by breeders from England,

where we have seen the biggest declines.

Funds to support Cuckoo-tracking were

raised through the raffle at the annual

BTO December conference, thanks to

prizes generously donated by Ark Wildlife,

Birdwatch Magazine, Bird Watching

Magazine, NHBS Environment Bookstore,

Swarovski and Vine House Farm. The

Cuckoo-tracking programme was initially

launched in 2011 with the help of Essex

& Suffolk Water together with the BBC

Wildlife Fund. Our input to programmes

on TV, such as Springwatch, and on radio,

including Saving Species, has resulted in

helpful coverage for BTO work and we

look forward to further developing our

collaboration with the BBC.

NIGHTINGALESAnglian Water have been supporting the BTO’s

Nightingale research for twelve years, in ways

that complement conservation management

work within their own sites, particularly

Grafham Water. Twenty Nightingales were

tagged in 2012, in the hope that we can

learn more about what happens to these

individuals in the eight months when birds are

not in England. We should be able to report

on the results of this exciting project in next

year’s Annual Review. Anglian Water have

maintained their funding for the project and

generously provided additional support for

fieldwork associated with the national survey.

NIGHTJARSThe BTO have been working closely with

Biotrack on tracking technology for several

years now. Biotrack supplied 20 geolocators

for tracking Nightjars, most of which were

deployed in 2011, with one bird being tagged

last year. The three tags recovered so far

indicate a spread of migration paths through

France, Spain and North Africa to wintering

areas in central and southern Africa.

Practical Support…

BTO CORPORATE MEMBERS

Opticron have maintained their support for the BTO, helping us to attract 250 new members with promotional sets of binoculars, and providing prizes for our annual raffle. Jacobi Jayne provided 100 nest boxes to help us woo new members during National Nest Box Week 14–21 February.The Bird Watching and Wildlife Club (BWWC) generously donated the first prize for the BTO raffle, a seven-day Highland holiday for two. Country Innovation kept 75 new members warm with pairs of birdwatchers’ mittens. To celebrate a new publishing partnership, Harper Collins supplied 200 Bird Guides as gifts for new joiners.Tom Lawson (Second Nature) and Michael Sweeney Books have provided invaluable advice on how to maximise income from donated second-hand books.As well as providing funding for BTO work and contributing five sets of third prizes to our raffle for 2012, the relationship with Ernest Charles (part of Gardman Ltd) helps us to recruit new Garden BirdWatchers.

Gold Members:Anglian WaterArk WildlifeBiotrack LtdBirdGuidesBirdseye / Iglo Food GroupCarl Zeiss LtdEDF Energy

Gardman LtdJustAddBirdsNature CountersNorthumbrian WaterOpticronSerenata Commerce LtdThe Birdtable LtdUnilever R & D Colworth

Silver Members:Bird Box Cameras Ltd

Bronze Members:Anglian Sports & Schoolwear LtdBirdwatching & Wildlife Club, Grant Arms HotelErnest Charles

Essex & Suffolk WaterFrontier Holidays LtdGardenatureHeatherleaJacobi Jayne & CoJohn E Haith LtdPaddocks Farm Partnership LtdParkhill Nurseries & Garden Centre Ltd

PorzanaR & E Bamford LtdSwallowtail Print LtdSwarovski UK LtdSyngentaTendley Quarries LtdThames Water Utilities LtdThe Nestbox Company LtdThetford Garden Centre


WalesSince the launch of the BTO Cymru office in 2011, our core aims have been to provide better support to volunteers in Wales and to increase the coverage of our surveys in the principality. KELVIN JONES, BTO Wales Officer, updates us on what’s occurring.

Thanks to a generous grant from

Natural Resources Wales (NRW, formerly

Countryside Council for Wales), we have

been able for the first time to offer free

training and 1:1 mentoring to new and

existing BBS volunteers throughout Wales.

The free training was advertised widely

via the BTO website and social media

channels and we made specific approaches

to Atlas volunteers. We employed a small

team of professional ornithologists who

accompanied volunteers on their first visits

to a suitable BBS square.

With access permissions arranged and

help on hand to iron out any problems with

habitat recording, the focus of the mentoring

sessions could be on the birds and the

survey techniques. By the end of 2012,

two training courses and more than 30 1:1

mentoring sessions had been delivered.

Despite the wet weather, coverage of the

Breeding Bird Survey in Wales was increased

from 219 squares in 2011 to 267 squares in

2012 – an increase of 48 squares (22%).

This is compared to an increase in England

of 7%, Scotland of 2% and Northern

Ireland of 8%, suggesting that the Welsh

mentoring scheme was very effective at

increasing coverage.

Encouraged by the outcomes

achieved by this project, NRW agreed to

fund a second year of the project which

will, we hope, boost BBS coverage in

Wales even further, allowing us to deliver

trends on more species and particularly

on species of conservation concern. In

addition to increasing BBS participation,

this project has also been an excellent

opportunity for BTO staff, regional

representatives, professional ornithologists

and volunteers to work together. BTO

Cymru is also is being supported by

Environment Wales (on behalf of Welsh

Government) and the Esmée Fairbairn

Foundation.

In the spring of 2012 we launched a new survey aimed at recording Stonechat, Whinchat and Wheatear. Wales is a stronghold for the UK populations of Whinchat and Wheatear, and also holds a significant proportion of our Stonechats. Both Whinchat and Wheatear are showing significant population declines and marked range contractions. Volunteers were asked to make three visits to a 1-km square to record their chats and to make a note of the habitat. The near biblical amounts of rain experienced in parts of Wales in 2012 certainly put a dampener on this survey but, to date, 225 randomly selected squares have been surveyed over the two springs, with 50 squares being done in both years. With the survey now finished for 2013 we hope that our scientists will soon be pulling some really meaningful results from the data collected – results that will inform urgently needed conservation action for these species.

MENTORING MAKES ITS MARK

WELSH CHAT

An easy way into undertaking a BBS square is to be mentored by an existing BBS surveyor in your first year: they will help you to get to grips with what it is all about and give you confidence.

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Scotland’s changing landscapes

The Scottish Government has set

ambitious targets to reduce emissions

by at least 80% from 1990 levels over a

40-year period. It also aims to promote

renewable energy so that electricity

generation is primarily from renewable

sources by 2030. Onshore wind power is

currently one of the cheapest and most

developed technologies to contribute

to these targets. Many wind farms are

already operational in Scotland although

the industry is still developing rapidly.

We already know quite a lot about the

local effects of wind farms on birds and

this has been used to produce robust

guidance for assessing the impacts of

individual wind farms. There is still a

pressing need, however, to develop clear

and objective methods to assess the

potential overall combined or cumulative

effects of all wind farm developments in

a region and, nationally, on populations

of bird species that may be affected.

The BTO is well placed to play a role

here, with its expertise in surveying

and modelling bird populations and its

strictly impartial stance. During 2011,

discussions took place to establish the

CHRIS WERNHAM, JAMES PEARCE-HIGGINS and DARIO MASSIMINO explain how information collected by BTO volunteers is being used to help us understand the potential impacts of wind farms and other land-use changes on Scotland’s birds.

Scottish Windfarm Bird Steering Group

(SWBSG), a very welcome collaboration

of the renewables industry (led by

Scottish Renewables), RSPB Scotland,

SNH and the Scottish Government. The

Group aims to facilitate the sharing and

best use of data gathered by developers

and others, and to help fund research

to improve the overall understanding of

the impacts of wind farms on birds.

The BTO was asked to carry out a

pilot study to develop a framework for

gathering information on the potential

cumulative impacts of wind farms on

Scotland’s breeding wader populations,

using Golden Plover and Curlew as

example species. Existing research

suggested that both species may show

avoidance of wind turbines, with Curlew

appearing to be one of the upland bird

species most sensitive to wind farms.

Golden Plover is listed on Annex 1 of

the EU Birds Directive, Curlew is one of

the most rapidly declining bird species

in the UK (and listed as globally near-

threatened), and much research has

already been carried out to understand

the factors influencing Golden Plover

breeding populations, so these are

definitely suitable focal species for the

pilot study.

The idea behind the work was to test

two different approaches to modelling

the cumulative impacts of wind farms

in Scotland. Firstly, we focused simply

on displacement and, secondly, we also

incorporated more uncertain impacts

on mortality. This first phase of work

was not intended to give precise results

about likely impact, but aimed to set

up suitable model processes and, in

particular, highlight information that is

needed to increase certainty in future

assessments of cumulative impact.

This is because the SWBSG needs to

understand what new research will best

help to increase confidence in predicting

The BTO has carried out a pilot study for the Scottish Windfarm Bird Steering Group (SWBSG) to establish an appropriate process for predicting the overall combined effects of wind farm developments across Scotland on numbers of breeding waders. This uses abundance data and distribution maps from BBS from which to make predictions about changes in numbers as a result of the developments. This conceptual modelling framework is then used to predict cumulative impacts of wind farms on Scottish breeding wader populations.

Scottish wind farms and effects

on wader populations


WORK TO DOThere is still much to be learned about the effects of wind farms on local bird populations.

cumulative impacts across Scotland,

and how data collected by the industry

(consultants and developers) as part of

pre-consent surveys and post-consent

monitoring can be used to increase

understanding of impacts.

The modelling was based upon

Scotland-wide maps of Curlew and

Golden Plover breeding densities

derived for both species from data

collected by volunteers as part of the

BBS, and provides a good example of

how BBS can be used for more than

population monitoring, for example by

being used to address a wide range of

important policy questions.

The application of these approaches

is most challenging in Scotland, where

there is considerable uncertainty about

breeding bird densities across much of

the Highlands and islands. This can be

reduced by covering more BBS squares,

enabling more accurate predictions to be

made. To achieve this, a new initiative

called ‘What’s Up? – in Scotland’s

Uplands’ was launched in 2012 by

BTO Scotland, in collaboration with the

Scottish Ornithologists’ Club and SNH

and with the support of a wide range

of other partners and volunteers across

Scotland. A key objective is to increase

BBS coverage in Scotland by a quarter, by

encouraging volunteers to cover at least

100 more survey squares in the uplands

and remoter parts of the country. This

will substantially improve our ability to

produce maps of densities of a range of

breeding bird species across Scotland,

and to predict the impacts of wind farms,

and a whole range of other land-use

and other changes, on their breeding

populations.

Facts Figures

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500+

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WINDFARM

The number of wind farms on the SNH database that are either approved/installed or undergoing scoping or application in Scotland, as in August 2012. The overall cumulative impact of these schemes on Scottish bird populations is still difficult to predict but modelling using BBS data can play an important role in increasing our understanding.

The percentage change in Curlew numbers in Scotland between 1995 and 2011 as shown by the BBS. This places Curlew as one of the fastest-declining breeding birds in Scotland currently, and the trend is also negative across other parts of the UK.

The number of Breeding Bird Survey squares covered by volunteers in Scotland in 2012. The ‘What’s Up – in Scotland’s Uplands’ project aims to add at least 100 new squares to this total over the next two years, substantially adding to the power of the data for bird conservation in Scotland.


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We are grateful to the Scottish Windfarm Bird Steering Group for funding the wind farm cumulative impact pilot modelling work, and to Andy Dobson for carrying out analyses for the study. We thank Colin Galbraith and Clare Lacey of the SWBSG for comments on this article. We are grateful to Scottish Natural Heritage and the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club for support for the ongoing ‘What’s Up?’ initiative and the many other partners and volunteers who are assisting with promoting and delivering the project. Our special thanks go to all volunteers in Scotland who contribute to the BBS, and to JNCC and RSPB, our partners in BBS.

FIND OUT MORE Pearce-Higgins et al. (2009). The distribution of breeding birds around upland wind farms. Journal of Applied Ecology 46: 1323–1331.

Pearce-Higgins et al. (2012) Greater impacts of wind farms on bird populations during construction than subsequent operation: results of a multi-site and multi-species analysis. Journal of Applied Ecology 49: 386–394.

Breeding Bird Survey abundance mapping. See www.bto.org/vbbs-spatial

What’s Up? – in Scotland’s Uplands. See www.bto.org/whats-up

Wind farms in Scotland. See www.snh.gov.uk/docs/A763435.pdf

The Scottish Windfarm Bird Steering Group See www.swbsg.org

MOORLAND BEAUTYFamiliar to many on farmland and wetlands in winter, breeding Golden Plover haunt our wilder habitats. These areas are exactly the places where wind farms are likely to be built and already research suggests that Golden Plover show avoidance of wind turbines.


There was a strong BTO presence in and amongst an eminent field of international researchers at the Annual Conference of the British Ornithologists’ Union in March 2013. The three-day conference (at the University of Leicester) considered ‘Avian demography in a changing world’, an area in which BTO has considerable and long-standing expertise. Accordingly,

BTO ecologists gave five well-received talks (below), while others chaired sessions. The BTO was also delighted to see Science Director Professor Rob Fuller receive the BOU’s prestigious Godman Salvin Award for his distinguished career in ornithological research.

Gavin Siriwardena: Field estimation of overwinter survival rates.

Catriona Morrison: Sex‐biased survival

in a declining long-distance migratory bird: implications for population dynamics.

Dave Leech: Seasonal patterns of arrival and post-juvenile dispersal in a multi‐brooded reedbed specialist.

James Pearce-Higgins: Avian demographic responses to a warming world.

Rob Robinson: Was cock robin killed? Application of Bayesian integrated population models to national bird monitoring.

The BTO in print49 staff-authored peer-reviewed papers were published in 2012–2013 and a further five were presented at the British Ornithologists’ Union Annual Conference. VIOLA ROSS-SMITH highlights some of the interesting results from last year.

Looking at some BTO PAPERS...

Stepping stones Species may need to shift

their distributions in order

to adapt to climate change,

something that may be

hampered by habitat

suitability. Examination of BTO and other data has

revealed the role that nature reserves can play

in this process by acting as stepping stones.

Offshore renewables GPS work on Gannets

from a Channel Island

colony has revealed the

importance of tracking

studies in assessing

possible impacts of offshore renewable

developments. Individual birds passed through

nine potential development areas in three

different jurisdictions, emphasising the need for

joined up planning and international cooperation.

Smith, J.A., Harrison, T.J.E., Martin, G. & Reynolds, S.J. (2013). Feathering the nest: food supplementation influences nest construction by Blue Cyanistes caeruleus and Great Tits Parus major. Avian Biology Research 6: 18–25.

Mendez, V., Gill, J.A., Burton, N.H.K., Austin, G.E., Petchey, O.L. & Davies, R.G. (2012). Functional diversity across space and time: trends in wader communities on British estuaries. Diversity and Distributions 18, 356–365.

Holt, C.A, Hewson, C.M & Fuller, R.J. (2012). The Nightingale in Britain: status, ecology and conservation needs. British Birds 105:172–187

Thomas, C.D., Gillingham, P.K., Bradbury, R.B., Roy, D.B., Anderson, B.J., Baxter, J.M., Bourn, N.A.D., Crick, H.Q.P., Findon, R.A., Fox, R., Hodgson, J.A., Holt, A.R., Morecroft, M.D., O’Hanlon, N.J., Oliver, T.H., Pearce-Higgins, J.W., Procter, D.A., Thomas, J.A., Walker, K.J., Walmsley, C.A., Wilson, R.J. & Hill, J.K. (2012). Protected areas facilitate species’ range expansions. PNAS doi 10.1073/pnas.1210251109.

Deer pressure Male Blackcaps

preferentially settle in

woodland plots from

which deer have been

excluded, with these

plots occupied earlier and by males of

superior body condition than those where

browsing by deer occurs.

Nightingale knowledge A suite of BTO work on

Nightingales is helping to

improve our understanding

of these birds and their

ecology, both here and on migration. Our

efforts, including tagging with geolocators, are

supporting conservation action through sound

science.

A sense of community Britain’s estuaries support

important wintering wader

communities monitored

by BTO volunteers.

Community structure varies

regionally and has also changed over time. Such

knowledge is important when considering the

conservation role of designated sites.

Feathering the nest Nest construction,

which requires

investment of both

time and energy, may

be influenced by food

availability, something recently tested through

experimental provision of supplementary food.

Supplemented Blue and Great Tits started

building earlier and, in Blue Tits, finished more

quickly than non-supplemented birds.

KEEPING TRACK OF CHANGE: BTO at the British Ornithologists’ Union Annual Conference...

Several BTO staff members are carrying out an ambitious long-term project on nesting Reed Warblers.

Holt, C.A., Fuller, R.J. & Dolman, P.M. (2013). Deer reduce habitat quality for a woodland songbird: evidence from settlement patterns, demographic parameters, and body condition. The Auk 130: 13–20.

Soanes, L.M., Atkinson, P.W., Gauvain, R.D. & Green, J.A. (2012). Individual consistency in the foraging behaviour of Northern Gannets: implications for interactions with offshore renewable energy developments. Marine Policy 38: 507–514


Corporate Membership 2012/13 Anglia Sports & Schoolwear Ltd, Anglian Water, Ark Wildlife, R & E Bamford Ltd, Biotrack Ltd,

Bird Box Cameras Ltd, BirdGuides, Birdseye, The BirdTable Ltd, Carl Zeiss Ltd, EDF Energy,

Ernest Charles, Essex & Suffolk Water, Frontier Holidays Ltd, Gardenature, Gardman Ltd,

Grant Arms Hotel, Heatherlea, John E Haith Ltd, Jacobi Jayne & Co, JustAddBirds, Nature

Counters, The Nest Box Co Ltd, Northumbrian Water, Opticron, Paddocks Farm Partnership,

Park Hill Nurseries & Garden Centre Ltd, Porzana, Serenata Commerce Ltd, Swallowtail Print,

Swarovski UK Ltd, Syngenta, Tendley Quarries Ltd, Thames Water Utilities Ltd, Thetford Garden

Centre, Unilever R & D Colworth.

Trusts 2012/13 The AEB Charitable Trust, The Balmain Charitable Trust, Benham Charitable Settlement, The A S

Butler Charitable Trust, The Chapman Charitable Trust, The Child-Beale Trust, The Marjorie Coote

Animal Charity Trust, The Dulverton Trust, The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, The Harris

Charitable Trust, The Lady Hind Charitable Trust, The Hobart Trust, The Marsh Christian Trust, The

Michael Marks Charitable Trust, The Mill Dam Trust, The Jack Patston Charitable Trust, Mr & Mrs

Philip Rackham Charitable Trust, The Rowan Bentall Charitable Trust, The Saxham Trust, The Slater

Foundation, Sussex Ornithological Society, The Tay Charitable Trust, The Tobit Trust, Udimore

Charitable Trust, The Emily Weircroft Charitable Trust, The J & J R Wilson Trust.

Legacies 2012/13 Bryan John Adams, Robert George Norton Barris, Jeffery Hugh Richard Boswall, Dennis Ashton Bullock,

Jean Diane Edwards, Edwina Maude Geffers, Dr Ian J L Goldberg, Mrs Eileen Rosemary Hewitt, David

Herringshaw, John Charles Holland, Peter Mackenzie Thornton Leith, John Darryl Richardson, David

John Stinson, Edith Lorna Thomas, Brunon Stanislaw Zakrzewski Tyc, Bernard Wright.

In memoriam 2012/13 John Robert Simcoe Abbott, Bryan John Adams, Mrs Delia A Averns, Rev Ronald A H Bocking, Alan Burgess,

Mrs Elsie Beatrice Glue, Angela Hanson, James Keith Jepson, Mr Lewis, John F Naylor, Mr E G Philp, Maurice

Pyle, Bob & Alison Spencer, Neil A Taylor, John Tully, Mrs June Watkinson, Mrs Muriel Wheeler.

Funders of BTO Work 2012/13 Anglian Water Group, APEM Ltd, Associated British Ports, Bayer CropScience, Baillie Wind Farm Ltd,

BBC Wildlife Fund, BiOD Ltd, BirdLife International, Birdseye Wall’s Ltd, BirdWatch Ireland, Black &

Veatch Ltd, Breckland Council, Broads Authority, Buro Happold, Butterfly Conservation, Cambridge

Conservation Initiative, Cardiff Harbour Authority, CEFAS, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Coombe

Farm, Co-operative Society, Country Innovation, COWRIE (Collaborative Offshore Wind Research

Into the Environment), Crown Estate, Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs,

Department of Environment Northern Ireland, Department of Energy and Climate Change, DHI

Water & Environment, Dstl, EDF Energy, Emap Active Ltd (Bird Watching Magazine), Environment

Agency, Environment Bank Ltd, Environment Wales, ESRC, Essex & Suffolk Water, FERA, Forewind

Ltd, Forestry Commission, Forestry Commission Scotland, Forest Research, Foster & Partners, Game

& Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT), Gardman Ltd, Greater London Authority, Jacobi Jayne &

Company, Joint Nature Conservation Committee (on behalf of Natural England, Natural Resources

Wales, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Department of Environment Northern Ireland), The

Leverhulme Trust, Make Architects, Manor House Estates, Manx Bird Life, MOD, National Forest,

Natural England, Natural Resources Wales, NERC, NJ Division of Fish & Wildlife, NIEA, Norfolk

Ornithologist’s Association, Normandeau Associates, North East Yorkshire Ecological Data Centre,

Northumbrian Water Ltd., Opticron, People’s Trust for Endangered Species, Royal Society for the

Protection of Birds, RSWT, RWE nPower Ltd, Scottish Coal, Scottish Government, Scottish Natural

Heritage, Scottish Raptor Study Group, Scottish Renewables, Serco Ltd, Snowdonia National Park,

OPAL Grants Scheme, SOC, Stanny House Farm, State of Delaware (DNREC), Swarovski UK Ltd

(Swarovski Optik), Syngenta, Tasso Leventis Foundation, Unilever Ice Cream & Frozen Foods,

Unilever Research, University of Cambridge, University of East Anglia, University of Edinburgh, US

Fisheries & Wildlife, Welsh Government, Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, Wildlife Trust, WREN, Zoological

Society of London.

It seems fitting that legacy income underpins the Heronries Census. After all, one of the main reasons that people give us, when they tell us about legacies they plan to give, is that they want the BTO to continue to undertake long-term surveys.

We refer to The Heronries Census as the BTO’s longest-running project but it actually pre-dates the formation of the Trust by five years. Started in 1928 by several of the people who would soon become the founders of the BTO, the Heronries Census involves annual counts of active heron nests each spring. With no break for the Second World War, this is a unique data-set, illustrating the recovery in numbers of Grey Herons, as water quality has improved and persecution has decreased. Herons suffer in cold winters and the crashes associated with the winters of 1946–47 and 1962–63 show clearly in the 80-year history of the survey. We shall be able to assess the effect of the winter weather of 2012–13 when data for 2013 are added to the series.

At the survey’s inception, Grey Herons were seen to be under threat and there was certainly no mention of other species. Little Egrets now provide a bonus for volunteers who have been counting heron nest for years, with other species perhaps poised to move in. We are grateful to all of the volunteers who have helped with the Heronries Census over the years and to the people who have provided or promised legacies which ensure that the BTO can continue to fund long-term research programmes.

To learn more visit www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/heronries and www.bto.org/birdtrends

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BTO funding in 2012/13We are very grateful for the generous support that we have received, both in time and money, in the past year. In addition to members and other fieldworkers, there are many other individuals and companies who support the work of the BTO with financial contributions.

GREY HERONS are still important

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ANNUAL REVIEW 2013 PARTNERSHIP

“The BTO has a vision of a world in which nature conservation and sustainable development are founded on evidence-based decision making, and in which society understands, values and contributes to that process.”

Much of the work referred to in the Annual Review relies on volunteers and is undertaken with other organisations, particularly through the BTO’s partnership with the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC). JNCC delivers the UK and international responsibilities of the four country nature conservation agencies – Natural England, Natural Resources Wales, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Department of the Environment Northern Ireland.

The Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) is a partnership of BTO, JNCC and RSPB. The Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) is a partnership of BTO, RSPB and JNCC, in association with WWT. RSPB, the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club, BirdWatch Ireland and the Welsh Ornithological Society are partners in BirdTrack.

BirdWatch Ireland and the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club are partners in Bird Atlas 2007–11.

BTO Cymru is supported by Natural Resources Wales, Environment Wales (on behalf of the Welsh Government), the Welsh Ornithological Society and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. BTO Northern Ireland receives funding from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency.

We are immensely grateful for all our partners’ support.

© British Trust for Ornithology 2013. BTO, The Nunnery, Thetford, Norfolk, IP24 2PU. E-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.bto.org

Registered Charity no. 216652 (England & Wales) no. SC039193 (Scotland). Cover: STEVEN ROUND stevenround-birdphotography.co.uk back cover: NORTHEASTWILDLIFE.CO.UK

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DEFRA

bto annual review 2013

Documents

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bto staff

bird atlas

ornithology pages

future work

new contract

new partnership

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