Happy New Year to all AOS birders!
Overall, the Atlas fieldwork is progressing very well: over eight million records have been submitted on-line so far - a tremendous achievement. The first record came in at around 2am on 1st November - a Tawny Owl: someone was very keen!
It would be impossible to mention "on-line" without giving credit to the BTO staff (Iain Downie in particular) who have done such amazing work to produce a system that does wonderful things and is easy to use - a big "thank you" to them!
What's Next?
I expect that quite a few people have already done their second winter season visits: the weather was reasonable over
the break. These have to be completed by 31st February 2008: so good luck with them. The breeding season visits can
start on 1st April.
Questions: There are always plenty of queries about a project of this size and this is a useful opportunity to share the answers to some of the most common.
Four years: yes, the Atlas project runs for four years, but you don't have to do your TTVs for each of those four years. All that's needed is two winter and two breeding visits - you can then take up more TTVs for the other years (please!).
Booking TTVS: you can request all the ones you want to cover over the four years, or request them as you go. Those people who really want to cover particular tetrads have done the former. BTO will, of course, be checking to see who has done what, so if you've requested several then it would be very useful if you could let your regional rep know in which years you plan to cover which tetrads.
Entering Data On-line: it would be ideal if you could do this as soon as possible after your TTV; please don't wait until you have done both visits. As all data have to be checked (see below - Validation) it is much easier to do this as we go along rather than a big rush at the end of each season.
Tetrad Population Estimates: this is a useful means of working out roughly how many birds of each species there is in each tetrad 9and then in each 10km square). It is much better done by the person doing the fieldwork, as you know the habitats in the tetrad.
The idea is to look at how many of a species you saw in your TTV during your one or two hours and how much of their habitat you didn't visit in this time: so if you saw two Bullfinches, but only visited half the habitat that would be suitable for them, your estimate would be four Bullfinches for the whole tetrad. This is an optional extra - you don't have to do it.
Missed or New Visits: If you haven't done your first visit to a TTV before 1st January, please don't do the second visit. It would be much better if you postponed your visits to the tetrad until the 2008/09 winter season. Similarly, please don't start a winter TTV in January/February.
If you are no longer able to cover a tetrad, please let your BTO rep know as soon as possible so that a new volunteer can be found.
Routes in a Tetrad: try to cover examples of the main habitats in a tetrad in your first hour - you don't have to cover all the tetrad in an hour! In the second hour (if used) you can cover more of the major habitats or, if necessary, habitats that could not be covered in the first hour due to the distances required.
Different routes can be taken in the first and second visits to a tetrad - this is very useful if there are several different habitats in your tetrad and it would be difficult to cover them all successfully in one hour.
Pausing the Clock: This really should only be done if you are counting a flock of birds or if you are retracing your steps within a tetrad (avoid double counting any species) . Please don't use it if you are driving between habitats in a tetrad - birds could be missed.
Rarities: please record all birds. Data for rarities will not be shown at the same scale as for "common" birds. The BTO's policy on this is available on the website. If you are concerned about this, please don't hesitate to contact me, your regional rep, or go direct to Dawn Balmer at the BTO.
Roving Records: tetrad recording is not compulsory for Roving Records, but 95% of all Roving Records so far have come in at tetrad level: this makes the data much more useable. Please do enter Roving Records for anything you see anywhere (UK and Ireland): these data will provide the species lists for each 10km square.
From Year 3 onwards, BTO will be checking these lists against those in previous Atlases and against county records: there may well be appeals for records of certain species for specific 10km squares - otherwise the conclusion will be that the species have been lost from the area.
Roving Records Counts: quite a few people have requested a "count" column on the Roving Records Form: this is now available - on-line and as a PDF download from the website.
Nocturnal / Crepuscular Species: ideally every 10km square will be visited at least once in the breeding season to check for these species (Owls, Woodcock, Nightjar, Nightingale, Grasshopper Warbler, Water Rail, Corncrake, Spotted Crake, Quail, Stone Curlew). If you do a Roving Records nocturnal visit and don't see any of these species, please put NILNOCT in the species column.
Breeding Codes: these should only be used in the breeding season visits, unless they refer to those species which do nest very early in the year (e.g. Woodpigeon, Raven, etc.). There are codes for species seen in the breeding season, which probably don't nest in the area and are still on migration, and those which are summering non-breeders.
Validation: very shortly, all Atlas Organisers will be able to see all the records on-line and "validate" them. Hopefully this will just be a matter of your BTO rep looking at everything you have entered on-line and indicating that they are happy with the records. If there are any queries, BTO will contact you direct: please don't take it amiss if they query and of your records - it's all part of the process!
Other Surveys: data from most of the other BTO surveys will be used for the Atlas, as they can be allocated to tetrads. These include: BBS; WeBS; BirdTrack; Garden BirdWatch; Ringing; and Nest Records.
Dead Birds: please don't record these! It can be very tempting if it's the only record for a species in a 10km square. However, it may not have died in that square and the data will be inaccurate. There are plenty of tales of dead birds travelling long distances - mostly on someone's radiator grill!
Bird of the Day: it's worth looking at the website to see which bird is featured. The indicator species probably won't change over time. Please remember that the maps for all these species are based on on-line data which have yet to be validated.
Finally: thank you all for the time, effort and expertise you have put in so far: it's a great project, and it's success depends on you!
Regards
Roger Dickey
AOS Surveys Member
With acknowledgement to Eve Tigwell
BTO Regional Representative for Somerset