Local Big Year: UK RBBP species

Birdwatch and BirdGuides launched #LocalBigYear at the start of 2022. They aim to encourage birders to “recalibrate and refocus their birding efforts” closer to home. For me, this initiative will include stepping up ‘a project’ that started in 2021 of trying to find and map the territories of UK Rare Breeding Bird Species within a 10km radius (and a little beyond) of Reculver Church.

The Rare Breeding Bird Panel (RBBP – see https://rbbp.org.uk/) collates breeding data on all species with fewer than 2,000 breeding pairs in the UK. Whilst I love finding scarce and rare birds, the challenge of mapping the territories of lesser spotted woodpecker or finding shoveler chicks to confirm breeding, is equally rewarding and challenging. It’s a different test of my field skills, and one connected to wildlife conservation.

For lesser spots, the plan is to work with some other birders to map the territories within the Blean Complex, perhaps one of the best places in the UK for this species. It’s a bird that I occasionally bumped into on the Surrey/Hampshire border when I lived there; on one memorial occasion it is a species I found on my local patch, Wrecclesham Recreation Ground, Allotments, Sand Pit and Floods. The Recreation Ground and Rugby Club were the place where Jonny Wilkinson and Graham Thorpe started their sporting careers. It’s where I started birding and not that I knew it at the time, it’s where the seeds of my ecology career started.

Other species I hope to map include turtle dove, building on the volunteer survey work I did in 2021 as part of the National Turtle Dove Survey, marsh harrier, and if I get lucky – shoveler. In the latter case, the focus will be on trying to confirm breeding success.