The County Atlas Project
The extra winter of fieldwork for the Somerset Atlas is drawing to a close, but we still have much to do, with another summer of fieldwork coming up, and several early breeding species to look out for in March (see below). The answers to some questions that have been asked are below – please read them carefully, as there are new questions, and some of the answers to familiar-looking questions have been amended as time and events have moved on.
Can I still contribute to the Somerset Atlas?
Absolutely. The final winter fieldwork season concludes on 29 February 2012, so please get out and collect as many records as you can, but there is also the final summer of fieldwork coming up. You will have several months yet to enter 2012 records on the BTO Atlas website, and any others you may have in old notebooks from 2007 onwards.
Can I still contribute to the national Atlas project?
Yes, but only for a very short time now. The deadline has been extended so that records up to 31 October 2011 can be included in the national Atlas project, but only if they are entered on the BTO Atlas website by 20 February 2012. BTO will no longer enter data submitted on paper forms, so you have to enter them on the website. So search again through those old notebooks for 2007 onwards, and get your data in quickly. Fear not, though – if you can't enter your old data in time for that deadline, it can still be of great use to the Somerset Atlas, so we still want it all.
So the BTO Atlas website is still available?
Yes, and it is vital that it is so, as the maps for our county Atlas will be generated by the BTO from the data entered there. BTO have made changes to the website so that data can be entered for tetrads within counties such as ours which are doing a county Atlas. There are currently two different links on the Data Home page for the entry of roving records (Tetrad Timed Visits are no longer important, as we have already decided that mapping abundance is beyond the scope of our county Atlas this time around). One is for records prior to 31 October 2011, the other is for local Atlas records from 1 November 2011 onwards. The only difference is that on the local Atlas roving records submission page you enter both elements that identify the 10km square in one field. This is to restrict it to 10km squares that form part of county Atlases. It's just as easy as before, so please keep those records coming in.
Special arrangements have been made so that you can also enter records for tetrads which are in Somerset, but which have previously fallen into other counties' allocations (e.g. the areas of Mendip, Cheddar Reservoir, inland of Berrow etc. which have been administered by Avon during the national project).
What is needed now?
There are few, if any, tetrads now for which there are no records at all, but some still have fewer species recorded than we might expect, and visits to even well-covered tetrads might yet still yield a few extra species. For the winter period simple presence of a species is enough, but in summer we also need as much evidence of breeding as possible.
This, then, is the key way in which observers can still make a significant contribution this spring and summer (and earlier – see below). In many tetrads observer effort so far has recorded most of the expected species, but for some species breeding evidence is lacking or at a lower level than expected. As we all know, sometimes even common birds just won't play ball on a given day! We now have a clearer idea of where these gaps are, and the collectors are likely to contact regular contributors, so that effort can be targeted as efficiently as possible in the 2012 breeding season.
In particular we may need volunteers to visit tetrads from the Avon allocation to improve the level of breeding evidence there, as we only belatedly became aware that they will only be mapping at 10km square level and therefore did not necessarily pursue the highest levels of breeding evidence in every tetrad once breeding was confirmed within that square. Our needs are different, so we need to confirm breeding in each tetrad wherever possible.
Some species are naturally difficult to locate, and these are the ones where most effort is needed now. Some examples are:
Sparrowhawk, Goshawk, Quail, Water Rail, Woodcock, Barn Owl, Little Owl, Tawny Owl, Nightjar, Nuthatch, Treecreeper, Jay.
What about early breeding species?
The ‘breeding season' for the national project was defined as April-July, but especially in our southerly position, some species start breeding in March, or even earlier, and the national project has under-recorded some of these species in our area. We have this last opportunity to fill in some of these gaps, so we need observers to put in a special effort in March to record evidence of presence, territoriality, and confirmed breeding where possible for the following species in particular:
Mistle Thrush, Dipper, Rook, Carrion Crow, Raven, Crossbill, Barn Owl, Tawny Owl, Little Owl, Collared Dove, Feral Pigeon.
Who do I contact?
Whether you want to volunteer to help out, or have a query about how to record species and breeding evidence, or cannot use the BTO website, the best person to contact is your local ‘collector'. Volunteer collectors have been appointed for each 10-km square to help the Atlas sub-committee – click here to see a list of them and who covers your area.
The Atlas sub-committee consists of David Ballance, Roger Butcher, Rob Grimmond, Stephen Moss, Julian Thomas, and Eve Tigwell. All of us are collectors too, so our contact details are in the list at the link above. Please also contact us if you have any queries – Rob, Julian and Eve have ‘super administrator' access to the BTO website, so should be able to answer a query if your local collector cannot.
Will data from other surveys (e.g. BirdTrack, WeBS) be included?
Yes. BTO are already incorporating these datasets into the national Atlas dataset, so if you've contributed to those you don't need to enter the data again. They will all be included in the Somerset portion of the final dataset for the national project, which will be sent to SOS in spring/summer 2012.
For those of you involved in the Breeding Bird Survey (BBS), please note that data from this survey will contribute to the tetrad species lists, but does not include any proof of breeding codes. Evidence of breeding is very valuable information, so please enter these records afresh on the Atlas website as Roving Records.
What about Schedule 1 species?
As with the national project, you can safely enter breeding records of Schedule 1 species at tetrad level. Only you and those few with 'super administrator' access can see your records of Schedule 1 species on the BTO website, and they will be mapped sensitively in the final Atlas (or in some cases not mapped at all).
We'll generally follow the scheme adopted for the national Atlas in consultation with the Rare Breeding Birds Panel, though there will be some adjustments to take into account the local situation (e.g. Cetti's Warbler - nationally scarce, but relatively common locally). The same may also be true with some nationally scarce or vulnerable species which are treated similarly to Schedule 1 species by the national project (e.g. Kingfisher, Raven).
Over 600 people have contributed records so far, for which many thanks - all of it is great, and we hope that many of you will help again to reach the level of coverage required to make our county Atlas a really useful resource for the future.