The Humber Winter Bird Disturbance Survey 2014 is now available. Fieldwork was undertaken at ten locations around the Humber Estuary to record levels of human activity, counts of birds and responses of birds to disturbance. Each location was visited a total of 8 times, with survey effort evenly split between October 2013 and January 2014 and evenly split between weekends and weekdays. Each survey visit lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes. During this time a ‘diary’ was maintained of all human activities and other events taking place within a 200m radius of a pre-determined focal area. If birds were present within the focal area and within 200m (or the birds were disturbed) then the diary record was considered a potential disturbance event. For all potential disturbance events species specific observations involved recording how the birds responded, the distances at which they responded, how far they flew if flushed and a range of other information. At the end of each visit a count was made of the birds present in the focal area – this count was then considered in relation to the levels of access recorded during the survey period.
12 February 2015 by Gordon Kell