Bird Surveys & Passive Acoustic Monitoring

Breeding bird and Winter bird surveys

These surveys have a variety of uses, from informing development plans to providing monitoring data for restoration projects and supporting farmers in applying for payments for habitat improvements.

Winter bird surveys consists of 4-6 visits from September through to the end of February. They can consist of walked transects or vantage point type surveys and can shed light on habitat use by birds in the winter and of any migrants.

Summer bird surveys consist of 4-6 visits in breeding season (late March to the end of August) and generally consist of walked transects. Bird species and their behaviour is recorded and mapped to build up a picture of breeding birds present on the site. Specialised surveys are also sometimes required-if you have wader species for example, or need raptor activity data.

I have experience of farmland, woodland and upland bird species and vantage point surveys for raptors.

I also carry out bird nest checks for farmers, either using traditional methods or using thermal technology. Some ground nesting bird species nest in crops, including silage, due to a lack of habitat locally. We can survey to let farmers know where the nests are and advise on mitigation strategies such as suitable buffer zones, and on providing habitat close by to provide alternate nesting habitat.

Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM)

Want to use PAM in your project? Whether you want to detect a specific species of bird, assess or monitor bird biodiversity on your property we can advise and employ sound recorders to best capture bird data on your property. PAM can be useful with more cryptic species and should always be used with in-person surveys to gain the whole picture of bird biodiversity on site. The great advantage of PAM is that it doesn't disturb the birds and can be left on-site, giving an overall picture of habitat use and species present.