BTO - British Trust for Ornithology - Other wildlife

Breeding Bird Survey

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 11:46:31 +0000

The Breeding Bird Survey is the main scheme for monitoring the population changes of the UK’s common and widespread breeding birds. The survey involves two early-morning spring visits to a 1-km square, to count all the birds you see or hear while walking two parallel 1-km lines across the square.

Breeding Bird SurveyButterfly Monitoring Friday, April 1, 1994 - 00:00

BBS monitors the population changes of 118 breeding bird species across the UK thanks to the dedication of almost 3,000 volunteers who survey their randomly selected 1-km square each spring.

The BTO/JNCC/RSPB Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) is the main scheme for monitoring the population changes of the UK’s common and widespread breeding birds, producing population trends for 118 bird and nine mammal species.

The survey involves a recce visit and two early-morning spring visits to an allocated 1-km square, to count all the birds you see or hear while walking two 1-km lines across the square and record any nest counts for colonial nesting birds in the square.

You can optionally record mammals and visit your square later in the season to survey for butterflies. There is the option to return data on paper, via field recording forms or to submit your data on BBS-Online.

Support the future of our birds

Our surveys are vital. The data they produce help us drive positive change for the UK’s birds.

But increased pressure on funding is putting our surveys and data at risk – which is why we need your support.

Donate today

bbs-report-2022-cover.jpg

Read the latest BBS report

The Breeding Bird Survey started in 1994, and a report is produced every year containing population changes and other results from the scheme.

The 2022 Breeding Bird Survey Report reveals a mixed picture, especially for birds which breed in farmland habitats.

Read the 2022 Breeding Bird Survey report

How to take part

Find out how to request a square and what the survey entails.

Results

Explore the results from the data BBS volunteers provide.

Mammal recording

Find out how to record mammals during your BBS visits.

Count butterflies on your BBS square

Take part in the Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey by making additional visits to your BBS square.

How to enter BBS data online

Instructions and video tutorials on submitting your BBS data.

Download BBS forms

Download and print BBS recording forms instructions and recording forms.

Support the future of our birds

Our surveys are vital. The data they produce help us drive positive change for the UK’s birds.

But increased pressure on funding is putting our surveys and data at risk – which is why we need your support.

Donate today

Take part in BBS - counting for conservation

David White

James Heywood

February – March Forms sent or downloaded
March Reconnaissance visit
Early April – mid May Early visit
Mid May – late June Late visit
May – August Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey
End of August Data entry deadline

Undertake three site visits between April and June - a recce and two morning visits, along with data entry. Able to identify UK breeding birds by sight, song and call. If you have the necessary bird ID skills to take part in the Breeding Bird Survey but want to learn more about survey methods, there are a number of BTO training courses covering this subject.

ongoing Farmland birdsUpland birdsWoodland birdsOther species volunteers

BTO Urban AppealWider Countryside Butterfly SurveyAssessing agri-environment schemes No bbs@bto.org

Garden BirdWatch

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 11:46:31 +0000

Help with research into garden wildlife by joining our Garden BirdWatch network for free.

Garden BirdWatch Sunday, January 1, 1995 - 00:00

BTO has run the year-round Garden BirdWatch scheme since 1995, and thousands of people across the UK contribute their sightings each week.
Gardens are really important habitats for wildlife, but we need to understand how and why populations of garden birds and other wildlife are changing, and how we can help them.
You can help by keeping a simple list and telling us which species visit each week, helping us learn about how wildlife uses the food, shelter and other resources in our gardens.
The more we can understand about how birds and animals use our gardens, the more we can improve our cities, towns, villages and individual gardens for wildlife.
Sign up for Garden BirdWatch!

How to take part

Garden BirdWatch annual results

Drawing competition winners

Join Garden BirdWatch for free

Tell us which birds you see outside your window and become more connected to nature.

Join and start your list today

Help with research into garden wildlife by joining our Garden BirdWatch community. Learn about the birds in your garden with Garden BirdWatch

Robert Jaques

Jan 1995 - Garden BirdWatch recording begins
Dec 2010 - Big Garden Beakwatch Survey launched
Dec 2011 - Abnormal Plumage Survey launched
Jan 2014 - Garden Wildlife Health project launched

Subscribe to email newsletter As much as you like, but a minimum of 20 minutes per week recommended. Can identify common garden birds by sight.

ongoing Garden birdsUrban birds volunteers

BTO Urban AppealGarden BirdWatch and our garden and urban bird researchOur volunteers: the beating heart of BTO data No gbw@bto.org

Join GBW for free

Become more connected to nature, learn about your garden wildlife and contribute to important scientific research by joining our community of Garden BirdWatchers.

Join Garden BirdWatch today

Distance functions of carabids in crop fields depend on functional traits, crop type and adjacent habitat: a synthesis

VIOLA.ROSS-SMITH — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 14:36:35 +0000

The Cuckoo cohort of 2024 takes flight!

More Details

Boetzl, F.A., Sponsler, D., Albrecht, M., Batáry, P., Birkhofer, K., Knapp, M., Krauss, J., Maas, B., Martin, E.A., Sirami, C., Sutter, L., Bertrand, C., Bosem Baillod, A., Bota, G., Bretagnolle, V., Brotons, L., Frank, T., Fusser, M., Giralt, D., González, E., Hof, A.R., Luka, H., Marrec, R., Nash, M.A., Ng, K., Plantegenest, M., Poulin, B., Siriwardena, G.M., Tscharntke, T., Tschumi, M., Vialatte, A., Van Vooren, L., Zubair-Anjum, M., Entling, M.H., Steffan-Dewenter, I. & Schirmel, J. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 10.6084/m9.figshare.c.6984205 Natural pest and weed regulation are essential for agricultural production, but the spatial distribution of natural enemies within crop fields and its drivers are mostlyunknown. Using 28 datasets comprising 1204 study sites across eight Western and Central European countries, we performed a quantitative synthesis of carabid richness, activity densities and functional traits in relation to field edges (i.e. distance functions). We show that distance functions of carabids strongly depend on carabid functional traits, crop type and, to a lesser extent, adjacent non-crop habitats. Richness of both carnivores and granivores, and activity densities of small and granivorous species decreased towards field interiors, whereas the densities of large species increased. We found strong distance decays in maize and vegetables whereas richness and densities remained more stable in cereals, oilseed crops and legumes. We conclude that carabid assemblages in agricultural landscapes are driven by the complex interplay of crop types, adjacent non-crop habitats and further landscape parameters with great potential for targeted agroecological management. In particular, our synthesis indicates that a higher edge–interior ratio can counter the distance decay of carabid richness per field and thus likely benefits natural pest and weed regulation, hence contributing to agricultural sustainability. This research was partially funded by the ERA-Net BiodivERsA, with the national funders French National ResearchAgency (ANR-11-EBID-0004), German Ministry of Research and Education, German Research Foundation and Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, part of the 2011 BiodivERsA call for research proposals and the BiodivERsA-FACCE project ‘Enhancing biodiversity-based ecosystem services to crops through optimized densities of green infrastructure in agricultural landscapes’ (PCIN-2014-048). P.B. was supported by the Hungarian National Research, Development and Innovation Office (NKFIH KKP133839), M.K. was funded by TAČR (SS02030018–DivLand).

Using butterfly survey data to model habitat associations in urban developments

VIOLA.ROSS-SMITH — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 11:24:45 +0000

The Cuckoo cohort of 2024 takes flight!

More Details

Cooper, J.E.J., Plummer, K.E., Middlebrook, I. & Siriwardena, G.M. Journal of Applied Ecology 10.1111/1365-2664.14583

1. One approach for measuring the potential biodiversity in new urban construction projects is through ecological models that predict how wildlife will respond. For the United Kingdom, such models have only been developed for birds, but to maximise the extent to which models represent overall biodiversity, species from different indicator groups must be considered.

2. Here, we assess this possibility for butterflies by combining citizen science survey data with high-resolution digital maps. We derive detailed characteristics of urban landscapes around survey sites using previously established methods and quantify their relationship to counts of adults of 18 butterfly species in urban and peri-urban settings.

3. Higher butterfly counts were found when traversing urban sites with larger areas of semi-natural grassland, other managed greenspaces, and adjacent arable land. Most of the butterfly community were found to have negative relationships with highly built-up or fragmented landscapes.

4. We found high species-specificity for different details of urban form, particularly in habitat elements such as gardens, vegetation around railways, and grass verges.

5. Policy implications: Improving biodiversity is now part of legislation governing new construction projects from England and Wales. However, predicting quantitative changes from hypothetical land-use modifications remains challenging. Our models provide the foundation through which butterfly abundance could be integrated into an urban biodiversity assessment tool, providing species- and community-level statistics to non-specialists from the urban planning and design sector. This would allow them to hone configurations for built surfaces, private gardens, greenspaces, and wildlife areas and assess their capacity to provide residents with the intended access to nature.

The authors thank the hundreds of volunteers who have contributed to the Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey (WCBS) and the UKBMS partnership who manage the surveys: Butterfly Conservation (BC), Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), and British Trust for Ornithology (BTO). This project was funded by a partnership with the BTO, CEH and JNCC. MasterMap data were provided by the EDINA Digimap Ordnance Survey Service, (May 2017).

Trends in butterfly populations in UK gardens - new evidence from citizen science monitoring

MIKETOMS — Mon, 22 May 2023 13:28:23 +0000

The Cuckoo cohort of 2024 takes flight!

More Details

Plummer, K.E., Dadam, D., Brereton, T., Dennis, E.B., Massimino, D., Risely, K., Siriwardena, G.M. & Toms, M.P. Insect Conservation and Diversity 10.1111/icad.12645 Private gardens are recognised as potentially important refugia for butterflies. Yet little is known about how gardens might be contributing to butterfly conservation, as their restricted accessibility has meant that garden habitats are not well-represented in traditional monitoring schemes. Garden BirdWatch (GBW) is the UK’s largest structured bird survey, comprising over 25 years of weekly bird counts from more than 14,000 gardens, predominantly occupying suburban and rural locations. Since 2007, a subset of GBW participants have additionally recorded the weekly abundances of butterflies. Using data for 14 seasons (2007–2020) from 7971 gardens with consistent butterfly monitoring, we present the first garden-specific, national trends for 22 widespread butterfly species (37% of all UK butterflies). Half of the species investigated increased significantly in abundance in gardens between 2007 and 2020. Conversely, only one species, Wall (Lasiommata megera), showed a marginal reduction, though this change was not statistically significant. A strong, positive association between these new, habitat-focused trends and those for UK butterflies more broadly, previously reported by the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS), indicates that patterns of abundance in gardens are largely a reflection of the changes that are occurring nationally. However, butterflies do appear to be faring better in gardens compared to the wider landscape. Averaging trends across non-migratory species revealed that GBW recorded significantly greater increases over time than UKBMS. Effective monitoring of butterflies in gardens can produce reliable and informative population trends, and it provides important evidence of the significant role gardens play in sustaining butterfly populations. BTO Garden BirdWatch is funded by its participants through an annual subscription and additional donations, and would not be possible without their generosity and support. This analysis was funded through the Garden BirdWatch Research Appeal and we are very grateful to those who donated so generously to the Appeal. We would like to note our particular thanks to John McCaig, whose interest in and support of this research has been especially generous. Thanks also to Clare Simm for her involvement in the earlier stages of this work, and other GBW and IS staff and volunteers for help with data processing and logistical support. Wider Countryside Butterfly SurveyPatterns and causes of covariation in bird and butterfly community structure A niche-based approach for evaluating the mechanisms of community stability in butterfly communities across three countries

Collation of a century of soil invertebrate abundance data suggests long-term declines in earthworms but not tipulids

MIKETOMS — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 11:04:54 +0000

The Cuckoo cohort of 2024 takes flight!

More Details

Barnes, A.E., Robinson, R.A. & Pearce-Higgins, J.W. PLOS ONE 10.1371/journal.pone.0282069 The authors are extremely grateful to the many BTO donors and members who have funded this project, particularly Simon Cooke and Gillian & Justin Wills and the Penchant Foundation. They are also grateful to Kenneth Trouth whose Gift in Will supported the work on this paper. They would like to acknowledge the help of UEA Master’s students Rhianna Wren, Evan Burdett, Abigail Hunns and Ashis Datta who assisted with the review and identification of relevant papers. Declines in invertebrates and birds – could they be linked by climate change?

Large-scale declines in insect populations have attracted much interest, prompting use of the term ‘insectaggedon’. However, a lack of robust monitoring data means that much uncertainty remains, both in our understanding of the scale of declines and how these may differ between insect groups. We know even less about the changing fortunes of other invertebrates, such as earthworms, despite their vital role in ecosystem functioning.

This paper uses historical UK datasets, derived from previously published research, in an attempt to assess if there have been long-term changes in earthworm abundance. A literature review identified over 100 studies, covering the best part of a century, from which it was possible to extract abundance data. The researchers accounted for differences in the methods used across the studies, and examined both changes over time and differences between habitats.

The results were consistent with there having been long-term declines in earthworm abundance, ranging from 1.6% to 2.1% per year in magnitude. These figures equate to a 33% to 41% decline over a 25-year period – 25 years being a standard measure for assessing conservation status based on measures of abundance change.

Habitat-specific analyses suggest that the declines in earthworm abundance have been greatest in broad-leaved woodland than in other habitats. Within farmland, the declines were greater in pasture rather than in arable landscapes as anticipated.

The reasons for the observed declines are not investigated in the paper, but could be linked to climate change and shifts in agricultural practices. Earthworms are sensitive to soil moisture levels, so a warming climate and the land drainage could see soils dry out, making them less suitable for earthworms. Other possible drivers could include pollution and agricultural run-off, together with the mechanical impacts of ploughing and other forms of cultivation.

These results do not come from a structured, designed monitoring scheme like the BTO/JNCC/RSPB Breeding Bird Survey, but a collation of data from previous studies. Given what they suggest could be occurring beneath our feet, which would be a significant conservation and economic issue in the UK, this study emphasises the urgent need for robust long-term monitoring of key invertebrate groups.

The State of the UK’s Butterflies 2022

WEBSITEEDITOR — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 16:01:45 +0000

03 Feb 2023

A newly-released report on the UK’s butterflies has revealed that 80% of butterfly species in the UK have declined since the 1970s, and half of our remaining butterfly species are at risk of extinction from Britain.

The State of the UK’s Butterflies 2022 is based on nearly 23 million records of butterfly sightings, most of which are submitted by citizen scientist surveyors. The report is produced by Butterfly Conservation, the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and BTO.

Project

The Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey

WCBS is the main scheme for monitoring the UK’s common and widespread butterflies.

Find out how you can get involved.

Many BTO volunteers have contributed to the report by collecting data about butterflies on their BTO/JNCC/RSPB Breeding Bird Survey sites, as part of the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme’s Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey.

The report highlights long-term trends, which show that many butterfly species have declined over the last 50 years in both distribution and abundance.

Butterflies are an integral part of the UK ecosystem. They are a food source for many of our threatened bird species, pollinate our plants and are also valuable as ‘indicators’ of the health of our environment. They are often the first species to be affected by changes in habitat or climate, and their decline is a clear warning signal about the state of nature more widely in the UK.

Habitat loss has had a particularly severe impact on butterflies which require specific habitats such as flower-rich grassland, heathland, and woodland clearings to thrive. The distribution of these species has shrunk by over two-thirds since 1976.

However, even butterflies that are able to breed in the farmed countryside and urban areas have declined by 17% in abundance and 8% in distribution.

Butterflies which need specific habitats such as heathland have been affected badly by habitat loss.

The Chequered Skipper has expanded its distribution in England and Scotland. In England, its recovery was only possible due to dedicated management of its habitat and a reintroduction programme. Liz Cutting / BTO

Amidst the declines, the report also provides evidence that we can make a huge difference for our most vulnerable butterfly populations.

“We know that where conservation action is carefully targeted and sustained in the long-term it has a real impact,” says Dr Richard Fox, Head of Science for Butterfly Conservation and lead author of the report.

A key example is that of the Chequered Skipper, a Butterfly Conservation Priority Species. Extinct in England by 1976, the species has been breeding in Northamptonshire since 2018 after a programme of habitat management and reintroduction in Fineshade Wood, Corby. The population has expanded naturally through the site’s carefully managed habitat, and, in 2022, nearly 150 adult Chequered Skipper butterflies were seen spread along 6.6 km of woodland rides.

As well as its success in England, Chequered Skipper has also expanded by 87% in Scotland. Indeed, Scotland generally bucks the UK trend; overall, butterflies show long-term increases in abundance and distribution north of the border.

Monitoring schemes like the Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey provide critical data for evaluating the status of our butterflies, but they also underpin evidence which demonstrates that conservation measures are a worthwhile investment.

Read The State of the UK’s Butterflies 2022.

Common Blue. Mike Toms / BTO

Survey butterflies in 2023

Find out more

Yes

Biodiversity

Monitoring

Other wildlife

Breeding Bird Survey

Bailiwick Bat Survey 2022 Report

MIKETOMS — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 08:46:47 +0000

The Cuckoo cohort of 2024 takes flight!

More Details

Newson, S.E., Allez, S.L., Coule, E.K., Guille, A.W., Henney, J.M., Higgins, L., McLellan, G.D., Simmons, M.C., Sweet, E., Whitelegg, D. & Atkinson, P.W. 978-1-912642-45-8

Background Working with a network of fieldworkers, static acoustic bat detectors were deployed over a 7-month survey season, to provide a second year of baseline data for bats for Guernsey, Alderney, Herm and Sark. This report provides an overview of the survey coverage and main results from 2022.

Coverage During 2022, 622 different locations across the Bailiwick of Guernsey were surveyed. Recording was undertaken on 209 different nights mainly between April and the end of October, amounting to a total of 2,416 nights of recording effort across sites. Sound recordings (wav files) were uploaded by volunteers to the BTO Acoustic Pipeline, where a first automated analysis was carried out and provisional results returned. Recordings were then moved to deep glacial storage for later auditing. At the end of the survey season, a copy of the recordings was pulled back, and manual auditing of the results / recordings carried out.

Results Overall, 3,389,138 recordings were collected which, following analyses and validation, were found to include 872,126 bat recordings, and 8,587 small terrestrial mammal recordings. Over 2 million recordings of bush-crickets and audible moth species were also recorded as ‘by-catch’, for which we report species presence on a site and night basis. Following validation, the study confirmed the presence of 13 bat species, 5 small mammal species, 5 species of bush-crickets, and 2 audible moth species. This includes the first records of Serotine Eptesicus serotinus for Jethou, the first Leisler’s Bat Nyctalus leisleri for Herm, and the first Common Noctule Nyctalus noctula for Alderney. More generally, we have a better understanding now of the status of all species of bats across the Bailiwick of Guernsey, and of the relative importance of different areas. In addition, the bush-cricket Large Conehead Ruspolia nitidula was recorded for the first time on Herm, with records from two new locations on Guernsey, which follows the first records for Alderney, Guernsey and Lihou in 2021. Lastly, the project provides the first large-scale data on the distribution activity of several species of small terrestrial mammals for the Bailiwick of Guernsey. The report includes a full species-by-species breakdown of spatial, seasonal, and through-the-night patterns of activity.

Bailiwick Bat Survey: 2021 ReportAcoustic PipelineBTO goes batty: how our Acoustic Pipeline project is contributing to bat conservation in some of Europe’s most threatened landscapes

Declines in invertebrates and birds – could they be linked by climate change?

MIKETOMS — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 08:31:09 +0000

The Cuckoo cohort of 2024 takes flight!

More Details

Pearce-Higgins, J.W. & Morris, R.K.A. Bird Study 10.1080/00063657.2022.2157373 Through case-studies that link changes in invertebrate populations to changes in bird populations, we suggest how climate change may increasingly impact bird populations through variation in their invertebrate prey. We assess whether invertebrate and bird population declines could be linked and suggest potentially emerging climate change impacts on wildlife. We draw on field experience and case-studies to illustrate how potential climate change impacts on invertebrates may cascade to affect bird populations and identify some key research gaps for urgent consideration. We highlight four invertebrate groups which may be sensitive to the impacts of climate change and that have the potential to impact bird populations that feed on them: soil invertebrates, foliar invertebrates, aerial insects and aquatic invertebrates. Our ability to understand these impacts is hampered by a lack of extensive long-term monitoring data for many invertebrates, and invertebrate data collected at scales that can be related to bird populations. We call for collaboration between entomologists and ornithologists, both non-vocational and professional, to support new empirical research and long-term monitoring initiatives to better link changes in insect populations and birds to inform future decision-making. This will be particularly important to understand likely future increasing climate change pressures on birds. We are grateful to Andy Musgrove for commenting on this manuscript prior to submission, and for helpful comments from James Bell, an anonymous reviewer and Associate Editor following submission. JPH’s contribution to the manuscript has been supported by individual donations to the British Trust for Ornithology. Breeding ground temperature rises, more than habitat change, are associated with spatially variable population trends in two species of migratory birdConservation interventions can benefit species impacted by climate changeClimate Change and the UK's Birds

Diversity, fragmentation and connectivity in the UK amphibian and reptile data landscape

VIOLA.ROSS-SMITH — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 13:08:48 +0000

The Cuckoo cohort of 2024 takes flight!

More Details

Turner, R.K., Griffiths, R.A., Wilkinson, J.W., Julian, A., Toms, M.P. & Isaac, N.J.B. Biodiversity & Conservation 10.1007/s10531-022-02502-w Large-scale biodiversity monitoring remains a challenge in science and policy. ‘Biodiversity Observation Networks’ provide an integrated infrastructure for monitoring biodiversity through timely discovery, access, and re-use of data, but their establishment relies on an in-depth understanding of existing monitoring effort. We performed a scoping review and network analysis to assess the scope of available data on amphibians and reptiles in the UK and catalogue the mobilisation of information across the data landscape, thereby highlighting existing gaps. The monitoring portfolio has grown rapidly in recent decades, with over three times as many data sources than there are amphibian and reptile species in the UK now available. We identified 45 active sources of ‘FAIR’ (‘Findable’, ‘Accessible’, ‘Interoperable’ and ‘Reusable’) data. The taxonomic, geographic and temporal coverage of datasets appears largely uneven and no single source is currently suitable for producing robust multispecies assessments on large scales. A dynamic and patchy exchange of data occurs between different recording projects, recording communities and digital data platforms. The National Biodiversity Network Atlas is a highly connected source but the scope of its data (re-)use is potentially limited by insufficient accompanying metadata. The emerging complexity and fragmented nature of this dynamic data landscape is likely to grow without a concerted effort to integrate existing activities. The factors driving this complexity extend beyond the UK and to other facets of biodiversity. We recommend integration and greater stakeholder collaboration behind a coordinated infrastructure for data collection, storage and analysis, capable of delivering comprehensive assessments for large-scale biodiversity monitoring.

This work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council and ARIES Doctoral Training Partnership [Grant Number NE/S007334/1]. We are grateful to the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (ARC) Trust, Amphibian and Reptile Groups (ARG) UK, the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Froglife, Biological Records Centre (BRC), and the Woodland Trust for sharing information on their data and their invaluable expertise on the dynamics of the UK amphibian and reptile data management landscape. In particular, we would like to thank Rob Ward (ARC Trust), Yvette Martin (ARC Trust), Emma Gardner (UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology), Kate Risley (formerly BTO), Rebecca McHugh (RSPB), Silviu Petrovan (University of Cambridge), Jenny Tse-Leon (Froglife), Steve Langham (Surrey ARG), David Roy (BRC), Martin Harvey (BRC) and Lorienne Whittle (Woodland Trust). We thank our anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback on previous manuscript drafts. We extend thanks to the thousands of dedicated volunteers who collect data on amphibians and reptiles in the UK and hope that this review showcases the value of their efforts for UK amphibian and reptile conservation.

Funding: This work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council and the ARIES DTP [Grant Number NE/S007334/1].