The aim to is produce a comprehensive all-species assessment of current bird distribution and relative abundance, and to make comparisons with previous Atlases undertaken around 1970 and 1990. Most of the results will appear as maps – hence use of the word Atlas.

The national Atlas aims to cumulate an overall picture for each 10-km square (hectad). But the data is being collected on a 2-km square (tetrad) basis.

The Atlas in Hampshire, is both a county (Hampshire Ornithological Society) project and a national (British Trust for Ornithology) project. There won’t be any separate fieldwork, and all the data will contribute to both projects.

No, all the data can be recorded at the 2km (tetrad) scale, and will therefore be useful for a county tetrad atlas.

There are two complementary methods – "Roving Records" that provide complete species lists, with breeding evidence, for every tetrad; and "Timed Tetrad Visits" (TTVs) that provide a measure of relative abundance.

Both – a winter Atlas for four winters 2007/08 to 2010/11,

and a Breeding Atlas for four seasons 2008-2011.

Winter fieldwork runs from 1st November to 28th/29th February inclusive. Breeding season fieldwork runs from 1st April to 31st July inclusive.

No, anyone can do Roving-type surveys and submit Roving Records, and there is no need to register in advance. However, if they haven’t already done so (for other online systems such as BirdTrack, BBS, or Garden BirdWatch), they will need to register on the BTO website to get a BTO online username and password for the online system.

However, volunteers do need to register for Timed Tetrad Visits (see TTV section below).

Yes, all BTO News articles relating to Atlas issues, especially training type articles will be posted online.

It’s all on www.birdatlas.net. Look at Summary results -> Regional results -> and click on Hampshire. Top bit then shows you coverage maps; scroll down to see some sample species maps.

Absolutely not ! Roving Records are vitally important, and for the purposes of recording breeding evidence and producing accurate distribution maps, are more important than TTVs. TTVs are simply for assessing relative spatial abundance of each species, and for complete tetrad-level coverage, the Roving will probably be a bigger job.

Roving records are any records that might help determine species distribution or breeding evidence. There might be a list of everything seen whilst thoroughly covering a tetrad, or you might record a Little Egret seen from a motorway, or a Sparrowhawk seen from your office window. Basically any and all records count because they all contribute towards the cumulative species list for each tetrad.

Yes, Rovers can go anywhere, as many times as they like.

No, so as to avoid confusion with TTVs, we’re not doing that at the moment. At a later date, to ensure good spread of coverage for breeding evidence, we may in Hampshire, have to nominate "lead rovers" for each tetrad. By default, this would be the TTV observer.

Any number of recorders can contribute Roving Records for the same tetrad. (However, TTV’s can only be undertaken by one observer in each tetrad and they need to register.)

It doesn’t matter if a species has already been recorded, the computer system will take account of it. Even if you know you’ve already submitted a species/tetrad record yourself, further records will be valuable if you’re raising the level of breeding evidence, or if you’re submitting a complete list that is suitable for the BirdTrack system.

Yes, we’d really like you to do that – for the county Atlas.

If you see a particularly rare species that may not otherwise get recorded, and you can’t be certain which tetrad it was in, then please submit the record at 10-km resolution. Otherwise, 10-km records are probably not useful in Hampshire. They may be very useful however in other parts of the country - in Wales, Scotland, Ireland especially.

Use your usual field notebook, but remember to always keep track of, and keep a record of which tetrads the birds are in. Personally, I always carry an OS map in the field, so that I can check on tetrads.

Having registered with BTO online and Atlas systems, login to Bird Atlas online, and click on "Add Roving Records". Follow your nose, and all very easy.

See also Roving Simple Online Guide.

Ideally yes, and the majority of Atlas participants are doing this. With the volume of data expected for this Atlas, it is the only way for us to cope. In any case, it will be easier for you, speed up the processing, reduce the costs, and also provide you with quicker feedback.

But if you really don’t have access to a computer, then you can complete the paper forms, and post to BTO after each season.

If you have relatively few records for any one tetrad and date, then they are most easily submitted via the Atlas Roving Record option. If on the other hand, you have a complete list of species seen in a tetrad on one day (or maybe already keep your records on BirdTrack), then you’ll probably find it easiest to submit your data through the BirdTrack system. It doesn’t matter; either way will do, and you don’t need to stick to one way or the other.

All records submitted to BirdTrack or Atlas, will eventually feed through to the County Recorder and the HOS Atlas project. So there’s no need to send separately. That said, I’m sure the Recorder would appreciate early notification of any particular rarities.

No, sorry, at the moment there is no facility for uploading data from personal databases or spreadsheets. It is on the wish-list, and there will definitely be a facility for uploads from official Bird Club databases. At some time further into the future, I guess this may develop for private individuals.

No, we’d very much prefer you didn’t do this. It may seem reasonable to input records that you’ve been told about (by a reliable friend, landowner, gamekeeper, or whoever), but the system has been built on the basis of the observer being one and the same as the person submitting the record – who in turn has registered on the system with their full name and address. There may well be a mechanism agreed in future, whereby landowner records of Barn Owl and such like, can be submitted via the Atlas Regional Organiser (Glynne Evans) or County Recorder (John Clark). So please retain the records,

There is a published Rare Birds policy, that lists sensitive species in various categories. See http://www.bto.org/birdatlas/taking_part/confpolicy.htm Broadly speaking, all breeding birds that are dealt with by the Rare Breeding Birds Panel, including all Schedule 1 species, will not be published or made available at the tetrad scale. But check on the policy lists if you are concerned about a record being broadcast to a wider audience.

In general, no. If for example you have agreed confidentiality with a landowner, then you must respect that confidentiality and not submit records. You can always ask though, and there will no doubt be exceptional cases for locally very sensitive breeding species (perhaps a species breeding a long way outside normal range).

No, in general, a record must have the name of the observer. For exceptionally rare or sensitive species, the name of the observer can be kept confidential within the system. Again, see Rare Birds policy on website.

The same checks are in both BirdTrack and Atlas systems to see whether a species is particularly unusual in Hampshire. It is a prompt for you to check that you haven’t made a mistake. (There is currently a trivial bug with yarellii Pied Wag.)

There are also threshold parameters in the system, that check whether numbers are reasonable. This is a prompt for you to check you haven’t accidentally added an extra nought to the number ;-) The parameters were recently adjusted to be Hampshire-specific (Jan 2008).

You can. The current online-entry form, and the downloadable form, include a box for entering counts. An early version of the form didn’t have it, but it was amended.

Yes. To do a TTV, volunteers do need to register and agree with the Atlas Regional Organiser (Glynne Evans for most of Hampshire) which tetrads they’re doing. This is to ensure a complete coverage without duplicated effort, and a sound statistical basis to what is in effect, abundance sampling.

No, absolutely not. Each tetrad only needs to have, and only should have, TTVs in one winter season and one summer season, at some point over the four years of the project.

No, not at all, but of course you can if you wish! However, we would like you to aim at completing all your TTVs well within three years, rather than leaving them till the last minute. During the second half of the 4-year project, we are expecting much more time and effort to be needed on filling the gaps in breeding evidence and species distribution (Roving).

Winter fieldwork runs from 1st November to 28th/29th February inclusive. For TTVs, the recording period is divided into an early period in November/December and a late period in January/February. The early winter TTVs must be done by 31^st December. If not, then leave till the next winter. Late winter TTVs must be completed by 28/2th Feb, or else the earlier visit will have been wasted.

Breeding season fieldwork runs from 1st April to 31st July inclusive. For TTVs, the recording period is divided into an early period in April/May and a late period in June/July. However, late period TTVs in Hampshire should be done in June because relatively few birds sing in the south during July.

Any one tetrad should receive one pair of TTVs in one winter, and one pair of TTVs in one summer. So this means 4 TTVs in total, the 1st in Nov/Dec, 2nd in Jan/Feb, 3rd in April/May and 4th in June (or 1^st and 2^nd in summer, and 3^rd & 4^th in winter). This doesn’t however preclude any number of Roving visits to the tetrad.

No, you could do the winter visits this year, but not do the summer visits to that tetrad till 2010 (say). Or vice versa.

Both winter visits should be done in the same winter by the same observer, and both summer visits should be done in the same summer by the same observer. But the winter visits and the summer visits can be done by different observers.

All Hampshire TTVs should be for two hours. The national instructions say minimum of one hour and that two hours is optional; this is because the BTO instructions have to take account of remote areas of the country.

You can’t (and you probably couldn’t in two days!). The purpose of the timed visits, is to sample the birds that are there, and to enable comparisons between areas, of the numbers of each species found in a fixed amount of time (relative abundance).

It would do, if it weren’t for the Roving Records. To produce a county Tetrad Atlas, the Roving Records will be vitally important. The aim of Roving Recording will be to obtain complete distribution information, and breeding evidence, for every species present in every tetrad.

Please do a winter TTV during the morning, starting at least an hour after sunrise. This is to avoid the confusion of roosting birds. Needless to say, also choose a reasonably fine day with relatively light winds.

Please do a breeding season TTV in the morning, starting at least half-hour after sunrise so as to avoid the confusion of dawn chorus. You should also aim to finish a TTV no later than five hours after sunrise, or else all the bird will have gone quiet. Needless to say, also choose a reasonably warm fine day with relatively light winds.

Your route should take you through all the main habitat types in the tetrad. Don't be tempted to ignore open farmland or urban areas - all are equally relevant for overall abundance assessments.

No, not unless it’s absolutely unavoidable. Try to cover all the main habitats in the first hour, and as much variety as possible in the second hour. But do not re-trace any of your route, and try to avoid double-counting.

Normally yes, but the more important thing is to cover all the main habitats in the tetrad. Basically, TTVs should be for a whole tetrad, even if it’s part in one county and part in another, and your route should ignore any boundaries. However, if you encounter any rare or localized species, please keep a note of which county they’re in, and inform the relevant County Recorder.

Ideally yes, but not necessarily. Visiting the variety of habitats is much more important.

Preferably yes. That said, there are tetrads that are bisected by motorways, railways, or rivers, where the only practical means of covering "all the main habitats", is to stop the clock and get in the car or on the bike, and move over to the other side.

No, it can be the same or you can change it. May be a good idea to visit different parts of a tetrad, or to reverse your route.

No, it can be the same or you can change it. May well be sensible to cover more of a particular habitat in breeding season (eg. woodland), than you do in winter.

No, TTVs in any one tetrad only need to be done, and only should be done, in one winter and one breeding season. This is so that all tetrads get a minimum comparable coverage on the same basis, and to provide statistical validity to the overall results.

Walking through a "boring bit" of the tetrad with no birds, is not a reason to stop the clock! You can reasonably stop the clock when you’re not actually looking for new birds. This may be when you are counting a very large number of birds on a field or on water, when you take a break, when interrupted by long conversations with local people, or when driving to another part of the tetrad. However, when the clock is stopped, it really is stopped and if something new pops into view, then you either re-start the clock two nano-seconds ago (!), or you log a Roving Record. Clock-stopping should be used sparingly, and as a rough guide, the stopped-clock time shouldn’t normally exceed say 20 minutes total.

Yes (except some coastal tetrads – see below)

The TTV results for relative abundance would be meaningless in tetrads where there is relatively little land. Therefore, TTVs are optional in tetrads where the centre of tetrad is below low water mark. Roving records are all the more important in these tetrads.

A full TTV is required in a tiny number of tetrads where the centre is above low water mark, but there is only a relatively small amount of land. In these tetrads, the TTV should include counting on the intertidal and sea. Count only as far offshore as you are confident in identifying birds, and don't count beyond the theoretical boundary of the tetrad.

Yes – the national target is a minimum, and BTO are hopeful that most areas of Southern England will have much higher levels of coverage (Sussex, Surrey, and Berks are also aiming for 100%). The online system will accept all these TTVs.

Yes, but not at the same time. And their survey route should be based on the whole tetrad and not simply follow their BBS route, or be confined to their BBS square.

It doesn’t matter provided that you don’t choose retrospectively. That is, you must decide on the day that it’s going to be a TTV day, rather than picking the best visit at the end of the period. Consider submitting the other visits as BirdTrack lists, or looking further afield and doing another tetrad ! But in any case, remember that the TTV should cover a whole tetrad, and this may not fit with your usual "site".

Yes, of course. Anyone can submit Roving Records from any tetrad (including one where they may have done a TTV), in any of the four years of the project. But obviously, there is no need to submit TTV records as Roving Records.

Yes and no; the test is whether the birds are "using" the square. Birds "using" the square, and that should be counted, might include: singing larks, gulls following a plough, hovering kestrels, low-flying raptors, feeding hirundines, thrushes flying out of a hedgerow, woodpigeons coming out of woodland. Birds that should not be counted, would be birds flying in a purposeful direction as part of feeding or roosting movement, on passage, or perhaps hard-weather movement, and high-flying birds such as raptors.

Even the most experienced observers find this difficult, and sometimes even small flocks can be under-estimated. I suggest practice whenever you can, and If you carry a digital camera, take some pics and see how close you were. There is also the problem of clouds of woodpigeons or corvids shooting about in all directions. For TTV purposes, though you can only put down a number (not 1000+ or c.1000), preciseness is not important. Just put down you best guess of the numbers.

One can rarely be sure whether the Little Egret seen at the end of a TTV, is the same as the one seen a mile away two hours ago. But for TTVs, the result of 1 or 2 doesn’t matter too much. It’s much more important with a flock of 1500 Lapwings – is it 1500 or 3000 ? Within the space of two hours, and within the area of a tetrad, you can usually make a pretty good judgement on this.

Within a mixed flock of birds (say finches coming off a game-strip), it’s sometimes not too difficult to estimate the total number of birds, but tricky to put numbers against each species. All one can do in these circumstances, is count whatever you do see clearly, and adjust pro-rata. Your local knowledge may also help.

No, your counts should be of adult birds and should exclude birds of the year. Immature birds (eg. 1^st-summer gulls) of course count as adult birds for this purpose.

Yes. Although the majority of Pheasants and Red-legs may be released birds, it will still be valuable to count what you see. If nothing else, it will give a very rough measure of gaming interests in the area.

No, don’t worry too much about breeding evidence during TTVs. Concentrate on the counting, and just record any breeding evidence that you happen to see. Roving Records should be the prime means of collecting breeding evidence. Some observers find it very useful to use a dicaphone in the field, rather than a notebook, and this maximizes the time with your eyes on the birds.

There is only a very limited time window for roost-counting, and most roost locations are unknown for the majority of species. Therefore, systematic roost counting of a reasonable number of species, would require considerably more resources and organization than is possible, and certainly couldn’t be done alongside the current Atlas project. Maybe something for the future.

In the majority of tetrads in Hants, TTVs can be done from public rights-of-way. But there are some tetrads where this obviously isn't possible at all, and some where very different and important habitats are on private land. In these tetrads, the observer must obtain permissions. Do not enter private land without permission. To decide whether access to private land is needed, the key thing is to consider whether you can visit all the different habitats that are in the tetrad.

You must approach the owner (or agent, farm manager, keeper, whatever). Local people can often tell you where to start. If it helps, the Regional Organiser (Glynne Evans) can supply a "to whom it may concern" letter on headed paper, that explains the Atlas.

If you’re doing a number of tetrads, you may find best to use the Atlas notebook that BTO have produced for the purpose. This is available for £n each. Alternatively, use your normal field notebook, but take a look at the TTV form first, and remember that you need to keep the first-hour and second-hour counts separately. Also, you will find it helpful with the on-line data entry, if you organize your recording by family groups (rough taxonomic order), and in any case do your data-entry (online, or to the paper record forms), as soon as possible afterwards – preferably same day. The TTV paper record forms are not really suitable for use in the field.

Having registered with BTO online and Atlas systems, login to Bird Atlas online, and click on "Add TTV". You should see the tetrad(s) that you’ve registered, and can proceed from there. If you don’t see them, then see "Online issues" below, and/or contact the Regional Organiser (Glynne Evans).

Ideally yes, and the majority of TTV participants are doing this. It will be easier for you, speed up the processing, reduce the costs, and also provide you with quicker feedback. But if you really don’t have access to a computer, then you can complete the paper forms, and post to the Regional Organiser (Glynne Evans) as soon as possible after each season’s second visit

Additional text information is sometimes useful for small-scale single-species or specialist surveys, but with such a large-scale project, additional information would simply never get used.

The validation system is not yet available, but will be used by Atlas Regional Organisers and/or County Recorders to review and check Timed Tetrad Visits, and to sign them off as reasonable (or if need be, to follow up on apparent anomalies).

Yes. These are optional, but we would really like everyone to have a go at this in Hampshire.

There is no simple way of doing it, and no right answers. Just try to factor up the maximum number you actually recorded in your pair of TTVs, according to the proportion of that species that you’d normally expect to encounter during normal bird-watching (those with census experience may be better at this), and according to the proportion that you covered of the habitat suitable for the species.

No, however clever and knowledgeable you are, they won’t be accurate. Their value will be in differentiating between orders of magnitude – 10, 100, 1000, 10000 - and probably a bit better than that for some species !

Yes, provided you saw the species in that tetrad within the Atlas recording periods, and in the relevant season.

Breeding season TPEs should be of adult birds – not pairs, or singing males. The estimates should exclude juveniles (birds fledged during that year).

For many years Breeding Atlases have categorised records according to 'Possible', 'Probable' and 'Confirmed' breeding and have mapped these differently so it is possible to see, for example, early colonists that are not yet breeding, or the edge of a range where a species is contracting and now failing to breed. The standard definitions identify several types of sightings you may make that constitute each category of breeding. For example, a single bird singing in suitable habitat constitutes 'Possible breeding', whereas a bird carrying food or faeces constitutes 'Confirmed breeding'. Many of these types of evidence are things we see every day whilst birdwatching and surveying and we are seeking these records to help determine the category of breeding for each species in each 10-km square.

Different types of evidence can be recorded using a 2-letter breeding evidence code, for example "T" (territorial) for a species recorded singing on more than one occasion, "FF" for bird carrying food or faecal sac, etc. These codes are very similar to the codes that were used in the first Atlas, way back in 1970. The types of evidence are hierarchical, and increasing the evidence level for each species during the subsequent years of the Atlas, is an important and enjoyable part of atlasing. See complete list of codes & explanations elsewhere.

Ideally, yes. But remember that evidence other than nests constitutes confirmed breeding, and it’s likely that you’ll see at least one pair carrying food or see/hear fledglings. However, for species such as Robin, we’d much prefer to see "probable breeding" in every tetrad, rather than "confirmed" in a few and only "possible" in many others.

In general, and for most species, it isn’t necessary to find nests to obtain the "confirmed breeding" level of evidence. Invariably, one can see adults carrying food or recently fledged young, and there’s no need of higher evidence levels. So don’t waste a lot of time, or risk disturbance to birds, by searching for nests.

Some rare and scarce breeding birds are of course Schedule 1 species, protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 as amended by the Environmental Protection Act 1990. It is an offence to visit a nest of these species, or to disturb them in the vicinity of the nest, without a licence. So you need to be particularly careful with these species. If in any doubt, leave it to people who already have licences for the particular species rather than risk disturbance.

Tetrads are 2km by 2km squares. There are 25 tetrads in each 10-km square (hectad) and each is identified by the Ordnance Survey grid reference of the 10-km square (SU43 say) plus a single letter suffix for the tetrad (eg. SU43B). Using a letter suffix avoids confusion with 1-km squares.

In Hampshire, all tetrads have a format of SUnnX (or SZn9X along the coast), where SUnn is the Ordnance Survey 10-km square (hectad) reference, and X is the tetrad letter. The tetrads are given letters A, B, C, etc starting from the SW (bottom left) & moving up. We leave out letter "O" so as to avoid confusion with zero, and to leave us with 25 letters. Such tetrad lettering is used by most British biodiversity recorders, and is often referred to as EJPUZ-DINTY notation – because that’s how it reads along the top of the 10-km square!

See the diagram elsewhere.

No, we will capture roving records automatically so no need to submit records twice. But you do need to specify in BirdTrack your site accuracy, and confirm which tetrad a site is in.

Though it will happen soon, the transfer processes from the other surveys and schemes, aren’t yet implemented (Jan 2008).

For small WeBS sites where site-to-tetrad mapping is reasonably easy, records will also be transferred automatically. Larger WeBS sites are more difficult to deal with, and it’s not yet clear how they will be dealt with.

Records of locally uncommon or particularly interesting species will be forwarded to the BTO, and incorporated in both county and national Atlas projects. However, the process may not be automated, and that route probably shouldn’t be relied upon for large volumes of relatively common bird records.

In conjunction with the British and Irish Rare Bird Breeding Panel, the Bird Atlas team has developed a protocol for how accurately to map records of confidential species. Basically we will only map certain species at coarse scales so as not to give away the precise breeding location. Some species will not be mapped under any circumstances. Any more precise information provided for the Bird Atlas project will remain confidential. For the policy, see http://www.bto.org/birdatlas/taking_part/confpolicy.htm

Most normal bird fieldwork precautions apply to Atlas fieldwork. See the BTO Health & Safety leaflet for aide-memoire, or as a check-list if you haven’t done much fieldwork before.

A particular difficulty seems to arise where volunteers have registered for BTO-online more than once (with different addresses). Try not to do this! But contact me if you have an access problem.

This can happen if your postcode entered by you during your username registration, is different to the postcode used by me in registering your tetrads. It can also happen if you’ve created a second username for yourself. Either way, let me know and we can sort it out.

Sometimes you have no counts on the first page; you still need to go to the bottom of the page, submit it, and confirm. Same with each page.

It’s fairly easy to edit your TTV counts, add additional species, or delete species that you clicked by mistake. However, don’t make too many mistakes, because the editing is designed for one species at a time. Also, be very careful to add your TTV for the correct tetrad; correcting tetrads is more long-winded.

The success of the Atlas online systems, have led to the BTO systems at some times of the week, currently having capacity and performance problems. This was especially so over the Christmas break, but try to avoid using the systems on Sunday afternoons and evenings after a fine weekend ! Solutions are in hand, but won’t be instant.

Please remember to tell me if your email address changes. Also, when you install a new computer, new operating system, or new security software, please check that you’ve set your spam filtering so as not to delete, or divert to junk box, the emails and attachments from my hantsbto hotmail email address. (OK, alright, some of you might prefer it the other way round ;-) )

Quite a lot of birders don’t seem very interested in the discipline of recording birds properly, and submitting the records. Please do all you can to promote the Atlas, and persuade all your birding acquaintances and any birders you meet, to enter Roving Records (at the tetrad level).