Atlas listing (1 Viewer)

[Mike Cook]

I did a prelim. recce of TQ34Z today (which I plan to TTV in a future year). It was not too exciting with the highlights being 15 skylarks, 2 buzzards and 10 linnets (first I've seen in TQ34 since 2006!).
Ken

Don't knock it Ken. I've not found a single linnet yet and only one skylark!
Mike

 

[Dawn Balmer]

Hi Joan

over the last couple of days we have been installing a new application server which hosts all our web applications. We've had a notice on all the homepages for several days warning of the down time. The Atlas website has been up and down a bit since Monday but can I reassure you our IT team are working really hard to fix the problems. Hopefully it will be up soon and much faster than before!

With best wishes
Dawn Balmer

 

[Surreybirder]

Don't knock it Ken. I've not found a single linnet yet and only one skylark!
Mike

Hi, Mike, I didn't mean to sound as if I was knocking it... I actually enjoyed it. It just didn't sound very dramatic in national terms. Linnets have become quite a rarity round here in the last couple of years.
Ken

 

[Stephen Dunstan]

Did SD33Z today which includes most of the village of Singleton and a small part of the upper reaches of the Wyre estuary. Did very well, and better than on the first visit, with decent local birds including Raven, Jay, Nuthatch, Tree Sparrow and Goldcrests.

The first time I did it I was staggered not to see any Moorhens on the many small ponds, five today made up for that whilst showing what you can miss.

Stephen.

 

[Mike Cook]

Tetrad NZ29F

Habitat. NZ29F is an inland tetrad with mainly arable fields although there were sheep in one field.

Route. We started at Ulgham, which is just off the northern edge of the tetrad. We walked south through Ulgham Broom Farm and at Broomhaugh, turned right to get to the B1337 road.

Walking north up the road, we detoured at Dukes Coverts, turning left and left again to visit the small wet area. Returning to the road, we continued north and then turned east along the bridle path that runs along the south side of North Plantation. At the end of the North Plantation, we turned north along the side road, returning to Ulgham, going past Dobson’s Hill and Crowden Hill Farm.

Map of tetrad - link to OS map

Weather. The weather was fine and dry but with a strong breeze. The temperature was about 10 to 12°. I would have preferred less wind but the weather has not been kind lately and I was falling behind schedule.

Highlights. The walk south was fairly quiet apart from 2 Skylarks and a flock of 40 Lapwings but at the end of it there were about 500 Wood Pigeons in the area of Dukes Coverts. There was a Reed Bunting at the wet area by Dukes Coverts. The walk east along the bridle path produced a flock of 50 Fieldfare and in the wood there was a mixed feeding flock of Blue Tits, Great Tits, Coal Tits, Nuthatches and Chaffinches. The Nuthatches were going in and out of a hole in a tree so that was entered as visits to a probable nest site.

Then came the bird of the day, a Song Thrush. I know it sounds silly, but it is the only Song Thrush I have recorded so far for the survey. This one was singing away, so maybe spring is around the corner.

On the walk back up the side road we found the only Mistle Thrush of the day.

For a complete list of both visits: View attachment 123316

 

[Mary]

I heard our winter visiting blackcap singing this morning - the males did this last year before leaving for summer quarters. As they are not likely to be nesting here, would I still record the male singing?

 

[Mike Cook]

I heard our winter visiting blackcap singing this morning - the males did this last year before leaving for summer quarters. As they are not likely to be nesting here, would I still record the male singing?

Interesting question Mary. I've been out today and there are a lot of resident species singing. I haven't been entering breeding evidence for them because a lot have been singing for some time. On the other hand there were a pair of nuthatches exploring a hole in a tree during my TTV survey at the weekend and I did put that in as breeding evidence. I regard that as a bit more solid.

Have you been putting singing robins, song thrushes and mistle thrushes down as breeding evidence? If you have, you should be consistent and do the same for your blackcap.

I haven't been putting down resident singers as evidence of breeding therefore would treat a blackcap in the same way.

I don't see why blackcaps should be a special case because some research has found that our winter birds are not the same individuals as our summer birds.

Hopefully, Dawn and Mark are still watching this thread and one of them will give a definite response.

Best wishes,

 

[Mary]

Interesting question Mary. I've been out today and there are a lot of resident species singing. I haven't been entering breeding evidence for them because a lot have been singing for some time. On the other hand there were a pair of nuthatches exploring a hole in a tree during my TTV survey at the weekend and I did put that in as breeding evidence. I regard that as a bit more solid.

Have you been putting singing robins, song thrushes and mistle thrushes down as breeding evidence? If you have, you should be consistent and do the same for your blackcap.

I haven't been putting down resident singers as evidence of breeding therefore would treat a blackcap in the same way.

I don't see why blackcaps should be a special case because some research has found that our winter birds are not the same individuals as our summer birds.

Hopefully, Dawn and Mark are still watching this thread and one of them will give a definite response.

Best wishes,

Good point, Mike - consistency is the key. No, I've not noted that robins etc are singing; like you I'll wait for the stronger evidence for their breeding, which probably won't be long.

 

[Surreybirder]

Hi Joan

over the last couple of days we have been installing a new application server which hosts all our web applications. We've had a notice on all the homepages for several days warning of the down time. The Atlas website has been up and down a bit since Monday but can I reassure you our IT team are working really hard to fix the problems. Hopefully it will be up soon and much faster than before!

With best wishes
Dawn Balmer

Dawn, what's the official BTO line on when you can do TTVs?
To be specific, do you have to do the four visits within a 12 month period in the right order (Winter 1, winter 2, summer 1, summer 2) or can you do, say, winter 2, summer 1, summer 2, winter 1 (=early). My county instructions insist that you have to do them in the 'right' order but I can see no logical reason why this should be so. The ideal, from my point of view, would be if you could do the visits in any order at any time over the four year period of the survey.
If there was more flexibility I would take on more tetrads but I've held back because I don't want to take on winter (early) visits only to find that I was not free to do summer (early ones) in the same year.
Ken

 

[Surreybirder]

I had a good second (late winter) visit to TQ34K this a.m. I was very lucky with the weather as I booked the day off work a few days ahead. The highlight was adding 2 snipe to TQ34's list but I also had a good no of house sparrows (20, with more seen outside the 2 hours) and marsh tit, treecreeper, sparrowhawk, yellowhammer (outside 2 hours), water rail (again, outside the 2 hours), 40 species in total.
Ken

 

[Mike Cook]

A dedicated forum for all things BTO

Just to let all 'tetrad tramplers' know, we'll be creating a dedicated forum for all things BTO in the very near future, with an Atlasing section, where we can have a Q&A thread and various other bits.
cheers
Andy

This post was dated 1st December. Has anyone heard anything more about it?

 

[Surreybirder]

at one point, someone said that there was going to be a 'section' devoted to the BTO atlas... has anyone heard any more about that?
Ken

This post was dated 1st December. Has anyone heard anything more about it?

I saw that there was a similar thread about the BTO Atlas but it seems to have petered out.

Ken

 

[Mike Cook]

Dawn, what's the official BTO line on when you can do TTVs?
To be specific, do you have to do the four visits within a 12 month period in the right order (Winter 1, winter 2, summer 1, summer 2) or can you do, say, winter 2, summer 1, summer 2, winter 1 (=early). My county instructions insist that you have to do them in the 'right' order but I can see no logical reason why this should be so. The ideal, from my point of view, would be if you could do the visits in any order at any time over the four year period of the survey.
If there was more flexibility I would take on more tetrads but I've held back because I don't want to take on winter (early) visits only to find that I was not free to do summer (early ones) in the same year.
Ken

I think we've talked about this before in this thread and never got a definitive answer from Dawn or Mark. I was told that I could do TTVs in any order. Maybe it's down to the statistical methods used for the local atlas and this is a requirement for Surrey but not for Northumberland?

If for any reason I am unable to complete a second spring/summer TTV, I would take an awful lot of persuading to scrub the previous three surveys and start that tetrad again. I'm not sure BTO could be that persuasive .

Can they administer virtual thumbscrews over the Internet? :eek!:

 

[Surreybirder]

I agree, Mike... unless they send lightning bolts over the internet, no way am I going to abandon the results I've done! But it would be nice to know what the official position is.
I heard from a guy I am in touch with in Scotland (about moths) and he has had white-tailed sea eagle on one of his TTVs - not bad!
Ken

 

[Stephen Dunstan]

Did a couple of re-visits yesterday - a square picking up the town of Poulton-le-Fylde and one covering the village of Weeton and surrounds. Highlights of the former were rather limited, basically a Sparrowhawk and a 'good' Magpie count, but it is always nice to cover tetrads I can walk to.

The Weeton tetrad produced a cracking first year Peregrine, the first of my TTVs. It was also notable for an enigma - what do you do when a small fishing lake intersects four different tetrads!

Stephen.

 

[Mike Cook]

He has had white-tailed sea eagle on one of his TTVs - not bad!
Ken

Right. Thats it! I've got my pet lip on, I'm going home and I'm not coming out to play again. 8-P I'm definitely sulking all the way to bed time.

I can't find a smiley with a pet lip so this will have to do.|=@| |=@| |=@| |=@|

 

[Mike Cook]

It was also notable for an enigma - what do you do when a small fishing lake intersects four different tetrads!

I was doing roving records and found a small lake split between two tetrads. I just assumed everything on the lake was completely mobile and put the records into both tetrads.

For a TTV I would tend to record everything for the TTV and as roving records for the other three tetrads. The question, what numbers do you put in? Do you take the number on the lake and take an average distribution - divide by four. Would BTO accept 0.5 Pintail and 3.75 Wigeon? 8-P

You cound try throwing in some grain at the right point and tempt everything into the right tetrad.

 

[Mike Cook]

At last, the weather good enough for another tetrad.

Tetrad NZ39A

Habitat. NZ39A is a coastal tetrad with a road appearing from the west side, running southwards and then looping round and disappearing off the west side of the tetrad again. Between the road and the beach is some rough grass and scrub with a few horses grazing, tethered to posts.

The River Lyne appears half way down the west side of the tetrad, swings south to run parallel with the road for a while and flows under the road and runs into the sea. The river level was significantly lower than my last visit at the start of December. I suspect recent storms have demolished a sand bar that had been damming up the river.

Map of tetrad - link to OS map

Weather. The weather was dry but bitterly cold with a moderate breeze. The temperature was about 3°C.

Highlights.

Duck numbers are up compared with the early visit with 10 Teal and 20 Mallard. I found more Curlew and Black-headed Gull than last time with 24 Curlew and 20 Black-headed Gull.

I saw Cormorant, Common Gull, Skylark, Grey Wagtail, 4 species of Corvid, Linnet and Reed Bunting, all of which were missing from the early survey.

The two Linnets were the star birds as they were the first I’ve found in this 10km square.

Detailed list - View attachment 124030

 

[Stephen Dunstan]

I did SD33I again today, which includes Stanley Park lake and some reasonable urban green space. Highlight was an Ostrich, because this is the tetrad with Blackpool Zoo in it. Birds with better credentials included several Shoveler and Pochard, good numbers of Grey Herons returning to nest sites and 4 Goldcrests. It was mildly amusing to have my Muscovy Duck on the park lake queried as a scarce or rare bird when I input the data...

Stephen

 

[Surreybirder]

Highlight was an Ostrich, because this is the tetrad with Blackpool Zoo in it

Stephen

It's amazing what you can see! I've had snowy owl and kookaburra locally - both in cages, which doesn't gladden my heart.
I was surprised to have yarrellii wagtail queried as a rare bird. Is it me or is it the Atlas that's going crazy?
Ken