Marsh Tit
HOS organised a survey of Marsh Tits in Hampshire during 2023. The Marsh Tit is red listed as a declining species and is not well covered by annual monitoring schemes. The aim of the HOS survey was to count Marsh Tits in a randomly selected sample of 1km squares across Hampshire using standard and repeatable methods. In this way we can establish a good baseline to allow future monitoring of the species in the county. The selection of squares to survey is based on the area of broadleaved and mixed woodland within them.
We used the well-tried playback method which has been proved to be a very effective way of detecting the species.The Marsh Tit is an early season species so the survey ran from mid-February until mid-April with March being the key month.