Herts Bird Club – making the most of local birdwatching

Welcome to the Herts Bird Club website. We promote the study and recording of birds in Hertfordshire and encourage a wider interest in natural history including the conservation of wildlife habitats.

Latest news

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.

Latest Hertfordshire Bird Report

The Hertfordshire Bird Report 2020

The Hertfordshire Bird Report 2020 was published and circulated to HNHS/Bird Club members in November 2021 (Transactions of the Hertfordshire Natural History Society, Vol. 5 (2), pp. 85-172.)

Read more

Latest HNHS publication

2021 subscriptions due now

Please renew your membership of HNHS and Herts Bird Club, details here.

Birds of Hertfordshire

 

Our new avifauna - Birds of Hertfordshire by Ken Smith, Chris Dee, Jack Fearnside and Mike Ilett was published on 24 February 2015.
Read the review in British Birds, here. Buy now direct from Herts Bird Club for only £34 (or £39 by post).

Herts Invertebrate Project

Read here about how to join this new recording initiative.

Herts Atlas of Mammals, Amphibians and Reptiles

Please submit sightings and field signs of mammals, amphibians and reptiles to our countywide survey, full details at the Herts MARA website.

Hertfordshire Bird Atlas

All the results from the most recent Atlas (2007-12) and both previous atlas surveys available here.

Bird records

Please send us your Herts bird sightings through the records submission page. Use the Breeding status dropdown where applicable and Comment field to add notes of interest.

Latest sightings of interest are published on the right hand side of this page, once they have been checked by a moderator. Search for older published records by month/site/species in Sightings Archive. 

 

See details of some great places to visit in Hertfordshire at this time of year.

Take part in our  projects and surveys.

Buy a book, most HNHS books are now for sale at half price or less.

The success of the site depends on you, the users, entering your records and sending in interesting information, not only sightings which can be entered online but also reports on trips and additional site guides. We also welcome feedback on what you would like to see on the site: email birdweb@hnhs.org

Injured or orphan birds ? advice here.

The Herts Bird Club is part of the Hertfordshire Natural History Society and our websites are integrated. We hope this will encourage those of you who have not investigated other aspects of wildlife in Hertfordshire to have a look around the HNHS website, discover what is available. Please submit your records of other wildlife, including mammals, amphibians, reptiles and dragonflies through the HNHS website.

Who's who in the Herts Bird Club.