A standard record form
is available
from me or from the Downloads
page
and it would be most helpful if these
forms were used and submitted to me, as Recorder, by email. All the
records are imported to a database so it does not matter about the
order of the records – it is probably easiest to use the forms
chronologically, just entering the latest observations that you have
recorded. If you have records that are not in date order, this does not
matter and we would welcome historical records from previous years if
they have not yet been submitted.
The crucial aspects of each record are:
- Species name (as in the new
BOU checklist - please use the BTO two-letter code in the latest
spreadsheet); -
Date of the observation; -
The 1 km square grid reference (when you enter this and move to another
cell, the location name and Vice County number should pop up in the
correct columns);
In this map the black
lines show the
1 km square on the national grid around Sychdyn. This is square SJ2466
- Note that the left vertical, blue line on the map is 24 and the
bottom, blue line on the map is 66, in the 100 km square SJ.
Do you wish to confirm where you saw
some birds? Try this link if you have Google Earth installed on your
computer:
Open Gazetteer of 1km
OS Squares in Google Earth
If you wish to check a grid reference, try using this application from
the Bedfordshire Natural History Society. You can zoom in or out
and move around as you wish.
Many thanks for Roger Horton for sending me these links.
- The age or sex of the bird; -
The number of birds
seen (please do not enter pairs as one record – please enter the
number of males then on the next line, the number of females); and -
In the comments column please enter any other aspects of the
observation that are pertinent.
All of the details
observers submit are stored. As
the records are handled electronically, it does not matter how
frequently you record the observations.
Records can be made
available to the
CBRG in a variety of ways, some of which are better than others. They
would all be equally good, if they all had the same requirements, but
that is expecting a lot. Records of bird sightings may be made
available by:
-
using a spreadsheet available from the Downloads page of this site (see
Downloads);
-
by using Birdtrack (www.birdtrack.net) - please make your 'sites' 1km squares, with names from the gazetteer; -
by using the Cofnod record submission facility (www.cofnod.org.uk); -
by using the
Birdguides record submission facility (www.birdguides.com but please
give your name and address); and -
by using the website run by Richard Smith (www.deeestuary.co.uk)
emailing your records to him.
Please submit your
records regularly,
preferably no less frequently than every quarter. For your records to
be considered for a bird report, please submit the records before the
end of March of the following year. If they arrive after that date and
they may be too
late to include, but will still be added to the Recorder 6 database.
I look forward to
receiving records from existing and new observers.
If you wish to practise
your counting
of flying birds, do have a look at the following website. Do the
exercise and see how accurate you were with your counts! Click
to open bird counting page
