SOS – Countywide survey in 60 tetrads Volunteers needed – can you help? Two morning visits in May/June and June/July. The Turtle Dove is one of the most rapidly declining species in UK and elsewhere in northern Europe, we want to find out how it is faring in Sussex. The objective of this project is […]
Author: Chris Brown
Wealden Heaths Breeding Bird Survey (West Sussex)
Surveyor needed urgently from 2019 This long running survey monitors 21 breeding species with emphasis on heathland specialists by the simple method of detecting males holding territory. The core heaths of West Sussex have been surveyed for over nineteen years and we are now in need of a surveyor for the important site of Lynchmere […]
Sussex Turtle Dove survey 2019
SOS – Countywide survey in 60 tetrads Volunteers needed – can you help? Two morning visits in May/June and June/July Click here for details.
Survey volunteers at Pagham/Medmerry please!
We need a couple more people to carry out some Brent Geese surveys around Pagham/Medmerry. The purpose of the surveys is to plot which fields Brent Geese (and key waders) forage on, so the survey will be a mix of driving around to see if there any target species on the fields that you can […]
SOS survey plans for 2019
At the October meeting of the SOS Scientific Committee we discussed plans for forthcoming survey work. On-going projects such as WeBS, BBS and SDFBI will continue as usual but there are two new projects planned for 2019. National Willow Tit Survey The endemic race of Willow Tit (Poecile montanus kleinschmidti) is the second-fastest declining species […]
Sussex farms: surveyors needed
The RSPB’s South Downs Farmland Bird Monitoring project is not being continued next year, but the SOS has agreed to try to find volunteer surveyors if the farmers involved would like to see surveys continue in order to maintain an understanding of how farming practices are affecting their breeding birds. This is an excellent opportunity […]
Website Access Problems
Last month (around 22nd/23rd) we had a problem with the site which caused a “site unsafe” message to be displayed in visitors’ browsers. It was fixed within about 36 hours but some people experienced the problem for a little longer due to a condition known as “caching” in which an old (and in this case, […]
Swifts – The Sound of Summer
Many people across Sussex are enjoying the brilliant “sound of summer” with the screaming parties of Swifts flying around villages and towns. After a very difficult migration in May it looks as if breeding has been good for many birds in Sussex. Now is the time to count how many Swifts can be seen flying […]
RSPB Turtle Dove surveys
We are urgently looking for a couple of surveyors to carry out turtle dove surveys in Sussex. The 1km squares we still need to cover are: TQ1717, TQ1719 and TQ1921 (Adur Valley, north-west of Henfield) Survey details: Surveyors need to undertake two surveys during the breeding season (early May – late July), with a minimum […]
Hawfinches: request for information
Hawfinches: request for information I plan to write a short paper on the Hawfinch influx into Sussex during 2017/18 and would welcome any information, not yet in BirdTrack or published on popular social media sites, on the following: Large counts. Evidence of birds on active migration. Food other than hornbeam and yew seeds. Roosting behaviour […]
