The Sussex Ornithological Society (SOS) is thrilled to announce that its publication The Birds of Sussex (2014) has been been judged the winner of the “BB/BTO Best Local Bird Atlas of the Year 2007-2017” This Award recognises the outstanding contribution that The Birds of Sussex has made to our understanding of birds in the county. The publication – known […]

New volunteers in Sussex are being sought to help to monitor national breeding woodcock numbers. Annual monitoring of roding woodcocks has taken place at a number of sites across the UK each year since 2003; a summary of the results can be found at http://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/woodcock-survey/results. Three visits to a site are required between 1st May […]

Now is the ideal time to sign up to take part in the BTO Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) and to come along to an informal practice session along with other volunteers. This national monitoring scheme is administered by the BTO and jointly funded by the BTO, JNCC and RSPB. It has been running since 1994 […]

In 2018 there will be a Sussex-only breeding Firecrest survey. The aims of this survey will be to estimate breeding densities of Firecrests in Sussex, to obtain a better undertstanding of their distribution in the county, and to find out in detail what kinds of habitats these birds are using. The survey will run in […]

This may be of interest  – if so, please, check the organisation’s website and make direct contact with them (from Toby Farman of Operation Wallacea) “I work for the organisation Operation Wallacea who carry out biodiversity monitoring in a number of different regions of the world during the months of June and July. We’re currently […]

Since 2005 the Society has been presenting annual awards for both exceptional service (President’s Award), and long service (Stonechat Award). This year the President’s Award went to Chris Brown for his work redesigning this website – well done and many thanks Chris. Stonechat Awards were presented at the Conference to Andrew House, Richard Lowe, and […]

We are looking for a volunteer to assist with the typesetting of the Bird Report. Ideally this would be someone familiar with desktop publishing InDesign (or who would be willing to learn). The main effort falls in the autumn when completed, agreed and proofread texts and photographs are available. Anyone interested should contact Peter Plant […]

Surveyors urgently needed at Pagham We need volunteers for a survey which, we hope, will lead to some very tangible outcomes. The foraging areas for wintering Brent Geese are under pressure around Pagham Harbour from development – pressures that will only increase in the years to come.   SOS is working with RSPB and Natural England […]

This really should be the final list from the (now) 17 teams who took part in the Bird Race this year: 123 Splash Pointers (Matt Eade, Derek Barber & Bob Self) 102 Team@SussexBirding (Lee Beadell & Alistair Gray) 101 Midhurst Martlets (Hugh Horne, Peter Davis, Peter Plant, Gary Trew) 94  Mike’s Mergansers (Jan Jupp, Lesley […]

It’s that time of year where we start to compile images taken throughout 2017 for the annual bird report. If you have taken any images last year (and in Sussex) that you would like to see included in the 2017 report, please send the high resolution/original to me with the species, location and date in […]