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| Lincs Bird Club Member |
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Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2008 7:28 pm
Posts: 7
Location: Bardney Limewoods
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The following message has been sent out by the BTO to all ringers, but its import is relevant to all birders. In particular, please note the request for details of unusual numbers/activity etc (last paragraph) and submit your sightings either to BTO or JNCC. With the ongoing mute swan study in mind, I would also like details please of any swan mortalities anywhere in the Lincoln area, ideally with a grid reference. Thanks, Anne[color=#0040BF]We are currently in the most prolonged period of cold weather for over a decade. In such circumstances, it is important to be especially careful in minimising any disturbance of wild birds, especially the wildfowl, waders and other waterbirds that visit our coastal and inland wetlands in such internationally important numbers. In frozen conditions, birds not only need to expend more energy to maintain their body temperature, but food becomes much more difficult for them to obtain. I n such cases, disturbance by people only adds further to the physical stress on birds, and such additional disturbance may result in increased mortality.
An alerting system based on daily ground conditions at 23 meteorological stations throughout Britain is used to assess the severity of the weather. When more than half of these meteorological stations (in either Scotland, England and Wales, or all three countries) have recorded frozen conditions for seven consecutive days there may be a call for voluntary restraint from shooting and after 14 days a statutory suspension of wildfowl shooting (for more details see www.jncc.go.uk/page-2894).
Under the criteria by which the number of days is calculated, 7 January 2009 is day 8 in both Scotland and England & Wales. In addition to shooting, however, it is also important to ensure that all other forms of disturbance at wetlands are minimised.
As we are now in the restraint period, please think very carefully before attempting to catch any waterfowl in the next few days. In particular, consider the local weather conditions and the conditions at the site(s) at which you wish to catch. It would be sensible to visit the site before catching to check what is happening with the birds there – if they are stressed by the cold weather, they are likely to be tamer than usual. Also, please check for corpses (and remember to check them for rings). If you do decide to go ahead as there is a need to collect the data, then you must minimise disturbance and the time for which birds are held. Also, as always, please be prepared to talk to any members of public in the area and explain what you are doing and why.
If you do make a catch, please work out the average weight of each species of bird in your catch(es) and provide me with both this figure (with the sample size) and the normal average weight of each of those species in January (please calculate from previous catches and let me have the average, sample size, number of catches and years included in the sample). Please let me know whether or not you consider the catch(es) to be representative of the birds in the area. IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU GET THIS INFORMATION TO ME ASAP AS IT WILL BE USED TO ADVISE THE CONSERVATION AGENCIES ON THE EFFECT OF THE COLD WEATHER.
In addition, it would be useful if you could send in any noteworthy observations from coastal sites and inland wetlands as part of the process of assessing the effects of the cold conditions on waterbirds. In particular, we would like to hear details of unusually high mortality, unusual behaviour (such as excessive ‘tameness’), unusually high (or low) numbers of certain species at particular sites, etc. These observations could be submitted as comments within BirdTrack or WeBS Online, or more detailed reports could be sent into BTO directly (ringing@bto.org or webs@bto.org) Alternatively, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee has a standard form available at http://www.jncc.gov.uk/pdf/wildfowlingform_08_09.pdf[/color]
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