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Annual County Bird reports (1 Viewer)

I'm looking through my County's latest report. It holds an incredible amount of detail for every species present in the County, but my question is, why are they produced every year? Why not every say, 5 years, with a bit less of the monthly detail throughout the year and more of the longer term "trends" for each species?

Just thinking the man hours of effort and money involved in producing these reports could maybe be spent on conservation work, and education of youngsters into the hobby perhaps? Does every society produce the reports annually? and what would you miss if they were less frequent?
 
I'm looking through my County's latest report. It holds an incredible amount of detail for every species present in the County, but my question is, why are they produced every year? Why not every say, 5 years, with a bit less of the monthly detail throughout the year and more of the longer term "trends" for each species?

Just thinking the man hours of effort and money involved in producing these reports could maybe be spent on conservation work, and education of youngsters into the hobby perhaps? Does every society produce the reports annually? and what would you miss if they were less frequent?

For me its the detail that grabs the attention and that's coming from a reader of the West Midland Bird Club report which covers 4 different counties. Hopefully there is a supporting publication (like the Harrison's excellent The new Birds of the West Midlands) which can then draw out the trends over a longer period of review. It is also good to read them whilst the year and its sightings are still fresh in the mind (the WMBC usually have a timelag of around 24 months).
 
The Report might be the only "tangible" that the average member receives, so only producing one every 5 years could perhaps have an effect on membership numbers?
 
Personally I like having a yearly report, in part because I like to read the sort of detail that would be omitted if they went to five yearly, for example. I also think that any period less than ten years probably wouldn't be enough to show proper trends, and then we are talking about a different type of publication.

In Norfolk the Bird & Mammal Report is published by the Norfolk & Norwich Naturalists Society, and funded partly by membership fees and partly by grants. It is written by volunteers, who also manage to do a lot of birding and other work!

I don't really buy the 'the money could be spent better elsewhere' argument, as it is not necessarily an either/or situation . The NNNS for example runs events and workshops to get others interested in wildlife.


I'm looking through my County's latest report. It holds an incredible amount of detail for every species present in the County, but my question is, why are they produced every year? Why not every say, 5 years, with a bit less of the monthly detail throughout the year and more of the longer term "trends" for each species?

Just thinking the man hours of effort and money involved in producing these reports could maybe be spent on conservation work, and education of youngsters into the hobby perhaps? Does every society produce the reports annually? and what would you miss if they were less frequent?
 
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