Fieldfare: Mike Hook
Murray Orchard
A new survey is being launched this winter which aims to evaluate how food resources in winter affect birds in lowland farmland, organised in partnership with Natural England and Defra. The structure and methodology of the survey closely follows that of the Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) and is to be conducted in the same squares. The survey differs from the BBS in that it includes Brown Hare as well as birds and requires habitat details to be recorded on each visit. A maximum of four visits are required, one per month, from December 2018 – March 2019. It is possible to do just two visits which should be between January and March. Although the main focus of the survey is lowland farmland in England, the BTO welcome volunteers to take up squares that contain all other habitats.
Full details of the survey including links to survey instructions, recording forms etc. can be found on the BTO website
Please note that those who do the BBS survey can go online now at BBS online and “self-allocate” (request to survey) their square by simply ticking the box next to it. From mid-November it will be possible for others to select those squares for the EWBS, but this will not replace the nominate volunteer as the BBS surveyor.
For Kent this survey will be administered directly by the BTO and further details or subsequent problems will be dealt with by the EWBS survey organisers: David Norfolk and Greg Conway – email: