Hen Harrier Day 2018: the persecution of birds of prey continues in the UK with hen harriers being brought to the brink of extinction as a breeding bird in England. Events to highlight this illegal behaviour are being held throughout the country in August http://henharrierday.org
Over the next few years the BTO will be running a series of surveys aimed at increasing our knowledge of the various owl species found in Britain. The first of these surveys is the Tawny Owl Point Survey (TOPS), for which volunteers are now being sought, and which will run from 15 August to 15 October this year, with follow-up surveys in early spring next year and then again in autumn 2019 and spring 2020.
TOPS is based on pre-determined 10km squares, three of which (ST93, ST96 and SU26) are in Wiltshire. Within each square the 25 tetrads are divided into “Primary Tetrads” (which were covered in previous surveys and are important therefore for providing evidence of changes) and “Secondary Tetrads”, which may be covered if there are sufficient volunteers available, once the Primary Tetrads have been surveyed. Volunteers are asked to pay two visits to their allocated tetrad, ideally within two weeks of each other. The visits should be planned to fall within the two hours after sunset and should last 20 minutes, to be spent at a point as near as possible to the centre of the tetrad, recording any Tawny Owl hoots or calls that may be heard.
Full details about TOPS are available on the BTO website at https://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/project-owl/tawny-owl-point-survey . If you are interested in taking part, follow the links to the tetrad allocation system where you can select a tetrad to survey, which Bill Quantrill, BTO Regional Representative, will be able to allocate to you if it is not already allocated.
Swift Awareness Week 16th - 22nd June
Do take a look at events being planned in Salisbury and Wilton by the Secret Garden https://www.secretgardensalisbury.uk/diary/ for Swift Awareness Week.
Other events are listed in the diary which are likely to be of great interest to those fascinated by the natural world and keen on helping conserve it.
at the Wessex Room, Corn Exchange, Market Place, Devizes, SN10 1HS
The WOS AGM followed by Stephen Moss who will present “Britain’s Big Wildlife Revival”. Stephen is a naturalist, author & TV producer who worked mainly for the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol for almost three decades. He and the wider team received a BAFTA Special Award in 2011 for BBC’s Springwatch. Stephen’s book WILD KINGDOM: Bringing Back Britain’s Wildlife was shortlisted for the prestigious 2017 Wainwright Prize for Nature and Travel Writing. Stephen will be talking about what can be done to save Britain’s threatened species and the wild places where they live, from red squirrels to red kites, cranes to crayfish and bitterns to the large blue butterfly.
For more information on Stephen visit http://www.stephenmoss.tv/TV_Producer/index.html
No entry fee and visitors very welcome.
The BTO Southwest Conference will be held on Sunday 18th March 2018 from 9.30 am to 5 pm in the Wiltshire Music Centre, Bradford on Avon. The conference will focus on the birdlife of Avon, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire. You can find more detail and book online
https://www.bto.org/news-events/events/2018-03/south-west-bto-conference
CWP Coordinated Gull Roost Count
The last coordinated count of gull roosts in the CWP was undertaken in winter 2005/06. In conjunction with the BTO Winter Gull Roost Count in 2003/2004 and a series of casual observations, these data confirmed that the CWP supported an increasing winter roosting population of gulls, in particular black-headed gulls, common gull, lesser black-backed gulls and herring gulls, with smaller numbers of med gulls, yellow-legged gulls, greater black-backed gulls, Caspian gulls etc and occasionally a white winged gull to liven things up. Furthermore these surveys highlighted that the CWP supports, in winter, an internationally-important population of lesser black-backed gulls, which at the time equated to over 5000 birds.
A new Atlas section has been added to the web site. This shows distribution and abundance maps for most of the birds that can be found in Wiltshire.
To access the Atlas, select Atlas from the menu items at the top of the page and follow the on-screen instructions.
The two peregrine chicks being raised on Salisbury Cathedral have fledged.
An orphaned chick, featured on Springwatch, has been raised by the pair of peregrines on the Cathedral who had one chick of their own. The orphaned chick was the slightly older of the two and fledged successfully on Wednesday 28th June with the natural chick fledging on Sunday 2nd July. We wish them luck, the life of young raptors is precarious.
In early June, three peregrine chicks were rescued from a nest in Shropshire after the parent birds were found dead having been illegally killed.
The three chicks, two female and one male have been fostered with the male going to the Salisbury Cathedral nest site where a pair of peregrines has been raising one youngster of their own. The foster chick has been accepted in the nest and both young birds are now being fed by the adult pair.