The Third Herts Autumn Garden Vismig Watch 2022

Autumn is fast approaching (faster than ever it seems this year!) and with that the chance for a renewed interest in the birds passing through our gardens.  Die-hard garden listers will know that autumn perhaps brings the best chance of something unusual appearing in or over our gardens.

Visible migration or ‘vismig’ for short describes the observed movement of birds from summer breeding grounds to wintering grounds all across Britain and that includes our gardens too.  Some of this movement may just be regional while other birds travel across continents.  Regularly watching your garden and the skies above it through the autumn (maybe an hour first thing or in the evening) will reveal this movement happening before our very eyes.

If you are keen to join the regular ‘garden watchers’ then add yourself to the Googlesheet and record your daily sightings throughout the autumn.  You can watch as little or as much as you like but you’ll be surprised at what passes through your garden at this time of year.

Swift Awareness Week 2022: an update from two local Swift groups

Swift Awareness Week runs from 2nd to 10th July this year, and this article highlights the ongoing work of two Swift groups to help conserve Swifts in the county, as well as details of a talk taking place in Hertford

Hertford Swift Group have been particularly active, erecting over two hundred swift nest boxes on houses and other buildings in the town.  They have also been giving talks and organising swift walks to raise awareness of swifts locally.

Hertfordshire Mute Swan Breeding Survey 2022

Update 23rd June : breeding at 43 sites.  

We now have good numbers of cygnet records in addition to the nests found earlier this year.  Please check the map for further details – thank you for all of the records, and please keep looking, there are sites still to be checked.  (In addition to the 43, the map includes 5 out of county sites which are very close to the Hertfordshire boundary).

 

The Herts Bird Club is organising a Mute Swan breeding survey this year, in the hope that we can build a complete picture of the breeding status of this iconic species in the county

The last Hertfordshire survey was 20 years ago in 2002 and recorded 62 nests, of which 41 produced broods of cygnets. 

Swift Mapper

With the welcome return of Swifts to our skies, please enter your Swift nesting records on Swift Mapper:

The Herts Bird Club is now promoting the use of Swift Mapper, an app created by the RSPB and Swift conservation groups to map Swifts and their nesting sites.  Full details can be found on the website: Swift Mapper where the app can be downloaded and interactive maps can be found. 

Starting with the Hertfordshire Bird Report 2020, we have been using records submitted to Swift Mapper when writing our annual reports and would encourage records of screaming parties and particularly nest sites to be entered via the app rather than our website.  This will allow data relating to Swift breeding to be accessed by conservation groups as well as the Herts Bird Club. 

Swift Mapper only accepts records of nesting and screaming parties around nest sites, and so other records such as large flocks over nature reserves should be submitted via our website in the normal way.  Please try to avoid submitting duplicate records to the Bird Club and Swift Mapper as this causes us more work when preparing the annual report.

 

The Herts Local Patch Big Weekend – Winners Announced

The first Herts Local Patch Big Weekend event took place on the weekend of Sat 23rd & Sun 24th April giving Herts birders (individuals or teams) 48 hours to find as many birds as possible on their local patches.  In addition, various challenges were set in the form of bonus points, awarded for example for recording 3 or more species of owl or 8 or more species of warbler.  Top of the bonus points on offer were the 20 bonus points going for any team that ditched vehicles in favour of carbon-free birding on foot.

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