The Bird Atlas team at BTO HQ have been working on a couple of changes to the online results recently which are well worth a look.
The main change is in the species richness maps, which highlight where extra effort is still needed. These use data from the previous Atlas to give an estimated number of species per 10km square as a target for coverage (shown as the current total as a percentage of this). These maps also now show the actual number of species recorded so far in each 10km square, so in conjunction with the species richness you can see how many species have been recorded and where. We hope that this will allow you to really target your recording effort. The maps for East Lincs can be found here:
http://blx1.bto.org/atlas-results/mapsline.htmlThere is also a new national map that shows ‘missing’ species, which is the opposite of the species richness map. Again this should help us to target effort, and can be found here:
http://blx1.bto.org/atlas-results/species-missing.htmlThough not relevant quite yet, there is also a new page showing where we are particularly lacking in breeding evidence. This shows the percentage of species confirmed as breeding out of all those for which any evidence has been given. We’d never expect all species to be proven breeding, but it does highlight the areas where more Roving Records with breeding evidence would be useful:
http://blx1.bto.org/atlas-results/percentconfirmed.htmlSo do have a look at some of these maps, and I hope this will spur you on to start filling in some of the more obvious gaps! If you have any queries or questions, or haven’t booked your TTVs for the winter yet, then don’t hesitate to drop me an email.
With Atlasing regards
Mark Grantham
East Lincs Regional Organiser
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Andrew Chick Website:
http://www.forktail.co.uk/