Atlas listing (2 Viewers)

[Mike Cook]

I feel a fraud reporting such a boring tetrad (no Snowy Owls, Ostriches etc) but what is, is. Nothing I can do about it.

Second tetrad of the day, both one hour jobs with mainly sea and little land.

Tetrad NZ39B

Habitat. NZ39B is a coastal tetrad with a road appearing from the south, at the most about 50m from the edge of the tetrad and disappearing off the west edge about half way up. Between the road and sea there is rough grass, a small lane with cottages going down to Snab Point and a couple of small car parks. Below the rough grass, the beach is rocky and so good for waders.

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.

There were good numbers of waders with 8 Knot, 20 Sanderling, 20 Dunlin and 30 Redshank, all improving on the numbers for the early visit. Black-headed Gull numbers were also up with 200 seen either on the beach or on the surface of the sea. I also saw a fair number of passerines that I did not get on the first visit: Meadow Pipit, Pied Wagtail, Dunnock, Robin, Song Thrush, Starling and House Sparrow. I also saw 2 Stonechat and a Merlin, recorded as extras on the way back

Detailed list - View attachment 124121

 

[Mike Cook]

I was surprised to have yarrellii wagtail queried as a rare bird. Is it me or is it the Atlas that's going crazy?

I must admit to taking the easy way out when I see a Pied Wagtail, I just log it as the default Pied/White Wagtail rather than going down the bottom and finding yarrellii, even though I am sure that's what it was.

I would have thought that the default in the list would have been the common subspecies for the UK.

 

[amelia1730]

I've just realised I've made a mistake! Not sure what to do but I'm sure I'll get some advice here!

I didn't get my info about Bird Atlas until late Nov early Dec, didn't get my head in gear until mid/late January due to illness, Christmas, holiday in Italy etc
I now realise that the first of my visits should have been in Nov/Dec so I am all out of sync. I have already submitted one lot of info for one tetrad (early Jan visit) but not my other - done late Jan. Do I carry on regardless and then do the next TTV only a little bit later, trying to catch up with everyone else?

I know I should be asking my coordinator this but didn't want to look a complete fool, so thought I'd try here first!

 

[Mike Cook]

I've just realised I've made a mistake! Not sure what to do but I'm sure I'll get some advice here!

I didn't get my info about Bird Atlas until late Nov early Dec, didn't get my head in gear until mid/late January due to illness, Christmas, holiday in Italy etc
I now realise that the first of my visits should have been in Nov/Dec so I am all out of sync. I have already submitted one lot of info for one tetrad (early Jan visit) but not my other - done late Jan. Do I carry on regardless and then do the next TTV only a little bit later, trying to catch up with everyone else?

I know I should be asking my coordinator this but didn't want to look a complete fool, so thought I'd try here first!

Amelia,

I think you need to contact the Atlas Organiser. We have until 2011 to complete the field work so the key question is whether the surveys for a tetrad have to be done in order:
Early Winter > Late Winter > Early Spring/Summer > Late Spring/Summer.

There have already been discussions about this, see here and subsequent posts. Unfortunately, I don't think there was ever a reply from Mark or Dawn.

Up in Northumberland, I was told that the surveys could take place in any order (unless I misunderstood). Down in Surrey, Ken was told they had to take place in the right order.

Perhaps you should contact the Organiser directly:
[email protected]
and get a definitive answer as there seem to be different interpretations of the 'rules' by different ROs.

If you contact Dawn and get a reply, it might be a good idea to post it here so we are all agreed on what we should be doing.

Best wishes

 

[amelia1730]

Thanks Mike.

Dawn's reply was as follows:

"You won't be able to enter a January date into the early visit. I suggest you enter your visit as a late visit and catch up on the early visit in the autumn 2008 (Nov-Dec period).

Hope that helps.

Best wishes
Dawn"

I was pleased to hear this and I'm sure this will help others too.

 

[Mike Cook]

Thanks Mike.

Dawn's reply was as follows:

"You won't be able to enter a January date into the early visit. I suggest you enter your visit as a late visit and catch up on the early visit in the autumn 2008 (Nov-Dec period).

Hope that helps.

Best wishes
Dawn"

I was pleased to hear this and I'm sure this will help others too.

Amelia,
Thanks for letting us know this. I think Dawn's answer makes things much easier for everyone, especially those like me with coastal tetrads which need to be done around high tide. There are only about four sets of high tides in a two month period and if you are limited to weekends and to reasonable weather (avoiding heavy rain and high winds) you can easily run out of options.

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

Ken,
It looks as though this answers your question. You can grab the extra tetrads and sort out any problems the following season. :-O

 

[Mike Cook]

Tetrad NZ29A

Habitat.
NZ29A is composed of mixed and coniferous woodland surrounded by agricultural land, with arable fields and pastures, some of which contained sheep. There are two areas of open water surrounded by trees on three sides.

Click here for OS map of tetrad

Weather.
The weather was overcast but dry. The temperature was about 11° but the wind was a moderate to strong breeze.

Highlights
Birds present in significant numbers were Jackdaw, Rook and Feral Pigeon, with their activity being centred on the Big Shed. There were also nearly 50 Wood Pigeon scattered throughout the woods. There were 22 Grey Partridge and 9 Pheasant, not surprising with all the grain feeders set up around the fields.

We had great views of a couple of Buzzards. They are increasing over here but are still not common in the Northeast. There was also a nice little flock of 7 Yellowhammer, the males now stunning in their bright yellow breeding plumage.

Detailed list - View attachment 125201

Only one more tetrad to get done in February. It’s very close to the sea so we’ll try next weekend when high tide is in the morning.

 

[Surreybirder]

Thanks Mike.

Dawn's reply was as follows:

"You won't be able to enter a January date into the early visit. I suggest you enter your visit as a late visit and catch up on the early visit in the autumn 2008 (Nov-Dec period).

Hope that helps.

Best wishes
Dawn"

I was pleased to hear this and I'm sure this will help others too.

thanks, Amelia, very helpful.

Ken,
It looks as though this answers your question. You can grab the extra tetrads and sort out any problems the following season. :-O

I agree!! I'll see if I can fit in any extra TTVs. I'm owed some leave.

Tetrad NZ29A

Habitat.
NZ29A is composed of mixed and coniferous woodland surrounded by agricultural land, with arable fields and pastures, some of which contained sheep. There are two areas of open water surrounded by trees on three sides.

Click here for OS map of tetrad

Weather.
The weather was overcast but dry. The temperature was about 11° but the wind was a moderate to strong breeze.

Highlights
Birds present in significant numbers were Jackdaw, Rook and Feral Pigeon, with their activity being centred on the Big Shed. There were also nearly 50 Wood Pigeon scattered throughout the woods. There were 22 Grey Partridge and 9 Pheasant, not surprising with all the grain feeders set up around the fields.

We had great views of a couple of Buzzards. They are increasing over here but are still not common in the Northeast. There was also a nice little flock of 7 Yellowhammer, the males now stunning in their bright yellow breeding plumage.

Detailed list - View attachment 125201

Only one more tetrad to get done in February. It’s very close to the sea so we’ll try next weekend when high tide is in the morning.

grey partridge is a major rarity down here, Mike. buzzards are becoming fairly common. (Did you notice that the last Birdatlas newsletter spoke about a map showing the spread of buzzard westwards. I can't help feeling that they have come from the west!
Ken

 

[Mike Cook]

(Did you notice that the last Birdatlas newsletter spoke about a map showing the spread of buzzard westwards. I can't help feeling that they have come from the west!
Ken

I must admit, I also thought they were going the other way, unless there weren't many in the far southwest, in Devon and Cornwall. No, that does not work, I've just looked at the 1986 Wintering Atlas and the far southwest is full of dots. He must have typed in 'westward' when he meant 'eastward'.

grey partridge is a major rarity down here, Mike.

The funny thing about the Partridges is that when we were recceing the tetrad there was a cage (now empty) at the edge of the field with a dozen Red-legged Partridges in it, yet on the surveys I've only seen Grey Partridges. Maybe there were other cages, not next to footpaths, containing Grey Partridges.

 

[Stephen Dunstan]

Have done four TTVs in the last few days, in some glorious weather for surveying. Highlight was 2 Purple Sandpipers today at Fleetwood, a very scarce bird on the Fylde though apparently these two have been around all winter. Two Stonechats and a Kittiwake in a work lunch break also welcome. Still nice to be able to see new places within a short distance of home.

Stephen.

 

[Capercaillie71]

No59i

I completed the last winter visit of my four tetrads today, in glorious sunshine. NO59I is situated just south of the village of Aboyne and runs from the banks of the River Dee up to the top of Birsemore Hill (330 metres). Much of the tetrad is forestry plantation (mostly Scots pine and larch), but there are also a lot of pockets of broadleaved woodland and a small loch (which was frozen today).

Map of NO59I

I managed a total of 23 species in 2 hours:

Mallard
Pheasant
Buzzard
Herring Gull
Woodpigeon
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Dipper
Wren
Robin
Goldcrest
Long-tailed Tit
Coal Tit
Blue Tit
Great Tit
Treecreeper
Carrion Crow
Carrion/Hooded Crow hybrid
Chaffinch
Greenfinch
Siskin
Linnet
Common Crossbill
Bullfinch

During my early winter visit, the species count was similar (22 species). Additional species seen on that visit were:

Grey Heron
Green woodpecker
Blackbird
Redwing
Jay
Lesser Redpoll

It was noticeable how much higher my counts were now that most species are singing (e.g. 56 coal tits compared with 17 last time round). I don't know how the atlas statisticians sort that out.

The main problem I encountered was on the east side of Birsemore hill, where I encountered a large flock of siskins in a larch plantation. Their twittering and wheezing just formed a 'wall of sound' across about 400 metres of hillside and I could hardly see the birds at all. I eventually settled on a guesstimate of 150, but it could easily have been anything between 100 and 400.

 

[Stephen Dunstan]

Yesterday I revisited a square of urban Blackpool with some green fields near the M55. Saw all three of the species that tend to be the highlights of a 'quiet' square - Goldcrest, Grey Wagtail and Great Spotted Woodpecker.

Today I was supposed to do my remaining return visit; unfortunately this square has the Riverdance ferry sat in it at the minute so I gave it a miss. Did a new square instead between covering some of Blackpool and Carleton / Poulton and the land in between. Didn't have high hopes so I was very pleased with results included Chiff Chaff, 2 Stonechat, 11 Meadow Pipits, 2 Grey Wagtails and other stuff including Snipe and Teal.

Stephen.

 

[Mike Cook]

Tetrad NZ29V

Tetrad NZ29V

Habitat. The NZ29V survey started with a walk through a valley containing mixed woodland from Ellington to Lynemouth. We climbed out of the valley and skirted round Lynemouth looking down on the treetops below. We left the tetrad to walk up the coast and re-entered it to walk past a farm and along a track through agricultural land to return to Ellington.

It was as well it was freezing as it made the path through the woods easy. It really gets churned up and rutted by bikes (pedal and motor I suspect).

Link to OS map of NZ29V

Weather.
The weather was sunny but cold. The temperature started about 0°C but had increased to about 8°C by the end of the survey. There was very little wind.

Highlights

It was noticeable how much higher my counts were now that most species are singing (e.g. 56 coal tits compared with 17 last time round). I don't know how the atlas statisticians sort that out.

Like Capercaillie, I found greater numbers of passerines in the woods compared with the early survey, now they are singing. We didn’t find a single Song Thrush though. This was despite finding plenty singing on my local patch last weekend. Maybe they didn’t like the very cold start to the day!

Quite a few gulls over the fields but we only saw two actually touch down, even though the way they were swooping down, they were probably landing on the other side of the hedge where we couldn’t see them. Numbers therefore down compared with the early survey.

We watched a pair of Buzzards circling each other over the woods. I was tempted to put either P or D in Breeding evidence but decided that this may be wishful thinking this early in the year.

Detailed list - View attachment 126489

Total for the tetrad after two surveys: 36 species (40 including Roving Records)
Grand total for the 10km square 116 species (I’ve seen 84 of them).

Late winter surveys now complete for this set of tetrads, so just trying to get my head around the breeding evidence codes ready for April.

 

[Mark Grantham]

I must admit, I also thought they were going the other way, unless there weren't many in the far southwest, in Devon and Cornwall. No, that does not work, I've just looked at the 1986 Wintering Atlas and the far southwest is full of dots. He must have typed in 'westward' when he meant 'eastward'.

You're very right here, and it should have said eastwards. I'll blame it on overwork or such like... Good to see people were paying attention though (I did receive a fair few emails back about this!)

Still a very impressive spread though, so do go and have a look on the BirdTrack pages.

Mark Grantham
BirdTrack Organiser
www.birdtrack.net

 

[Mike Cook]

Easytide web site

Having coastal tetrads to display, I have been using the free 7 day tide prediction service on the Admiralty UK Hydrographic Office Easytide web site to plan surveys so the tide is above half way.

Admiralty UKHO site

When I tried to use it at the weekend, I either got a timeout or a screen that said

Directory Listing Denied
This Virtual Directory does not allow contents to be listed.

Does anyone else use this site, and if so, are they having the same problem or has something changed on my PC?

If no one here can help, no problem, I'll just delete this post and start a thread on the 'Computers and Internet' forum.

 

[james d]

Easytide web site

Having coastal tetrads to display, I have been using the free 7 day tide prediction service on the Admiralty UK Hydrographic Office Easytide web site to plan surveys so the tide is above half way.

Admiralty UKHO site

When I tried to use it at the weekend, I either got a timeout or a screen that said
Does anyone else use this site, and if so, are they having the same problem or has something changed on my PC?

If no one here can help, no problem, I'll just delete this post and start a thread on the 'Computers and Internet' forum.

Mike

I also use this site regularly. Tried it this morning with no success.

James

 

[Mike Cook]

Mike

I also use this site regularly. Tried it this morning with no success.

James

James,

Thanks for letting me know. I've emailed the UKHO Helpdesk so when I hear from them, I'll post their reply here.

 

[Mike Cook]

Easytide web site

I just received the following reply from the UKHO Helpdesk.

Thank you for your enquiry regarding the EasyTide site.

EasyTide is being moved to a new webserver, the domains EasyTide(.co.uk/.net/com) have already moved and should work on all browsers, the site easytide.ukho.gov.uk is in the process of moving and should be fully migrated by this time tomorrow at which time all issues with the EasyTide site be fixed.

Apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.

I must say, I'm impressed by their timely response.

 

[Mike Cook]

Easytide

I've just checked the Easytide web site and it is now working normally again.:-O

 

[Stephen Dunstan]

I did an urban Blackpool tetrad during a lunch break on Wednesday, including Blackpool Pleasure Beach, which includes my BBS tetrad. Not surprisingly perhaps the website queried the total of 300 feral pigeons. A Grey Wagtail was the highlight, in the Pleasure Beach itself, it is becoming clear just how much more regular they are in this part of the world than they used to be.

Stephen.