Herts Bird Club

As part of Project Owl the BTO are looking for volunteers to take part in a couple of Tawny Owl surveys, which it’s hoped will run from this autumn to spring 2020.

The first of these is called the Tawny Owl Point Survey which starts this autumn from mid-August until mid-October. It requires volunteers to undertake two 20 minute long evening visits, within the two hours after sunset, to the middle of their allocated tetrad and to record any Tawny Owls heard. The intention is to repeat again next spring, from mid-February to mid-March and, funding permitting, again in autumn 2019/spring 2020.

Interested? Check out available squares, including many still available in Herts, and sign up for one at:

Tawny Owl Point Survey

It is hoped to cover all the priority tetrads.

There will also be a Tawny Owl Calling Survey. This is easily done from people’s gardens, or local green space, and entails spending 20 minutes listening for Tawny Owls on one evening per week from 30 September to 31 March.

Registration for this survey will be possible soon.

Since the first Action for Swifts article was published earlier this year, local swift enthusiast Vicky Duxbury has been busy organising events and spreading the word to raise awareness of the decline in swift numbers. 

Click Read more below to find out more!

If you are interested helping in whatever way you can please get in touch with Vicky at vicduxbury@hotmail.com

Following on from his White-winged Black Tern find at Tyttenhanger last Autumn, Steve Blake once again struck patch gold this time adding a new species to the Herts list. Read Steve's account of his find below.

" Monday, 16th April 2018

After what felt like a never ending wet and cold winter, today felt more like spring had finally arrived!  Although some migrant birds were already on site, I had a few target birds in mind, planning to cover the whole site in pursuit of those species.