South Pennine Moors Upland Breeding Bird Monitoring

Challenge

• The project required negotiations with estate managers in view of the sensitivities surrounding completing surveys when grouse chicks are present.
• The large volumes of fieldwork and reporting within a tight deadline required flexible scheduling to accommodate access restrictions, as well as the support of our GIS & Data Management team for the timely analysis of data.

Approach

• The team of ornithological surveyors completed survey visits to 301 grid squares spread across the survey area, on two occasions between April and June, following standard methods at the time, Brown and Shepherd^[1]. All sightings of breeding birds associated with open moorland habitat were recorded during the visits.
• Access was negotiated with landowners and estate managers and a spatially referenced dataset of approved transect routes was provided to Natural England for use in future monitoring years.

_{[1] Brown, A. F. and Shepherd, K. B. (1993) A method for censusing upland breeding waders. Bird Study, 40, pp. 189-195.}

Outcome

Over the two survey visits:

• 68 species were reported, including 5,110 meadow pipits, 1,631 skylark and 1,540 red grouse.
• Unsurprisingly, the greatest numbers of red grouse were recorded on land managed by shooting estates.
• Skylark records were spread relatively equally across the survey area, with the species absent from only 3 of the 1-kilometre squares. The greatest concentrations were recorded both sides of the M62 motorway. Densities were generally lower on steeper slopes and larger areas of dense heather.
• Meadow pipit was by far the most numerous breeding species present in the survey area and was recorded in all areas of open moorland.

Keystone’s reporting included territory maps for 45 species recorded on site. The results of the comparison with data obtained during a survey completed in 2005 indicated that:

• Numbers of meadow pipit, skylark and red grouse had increased by 50%, 15% and 138% respectively.
• The populations of breeding waders appeared to have remained generally stable, with 2 contrasting exceptions:
• Oystercatcher – 285% increase in breeding pairs; and
• Redshank – 45% decline in breeding pairs.
• Two of the most notable population differences related to long distance summer migrants that appeared to be declining nationally in recent years:
• Ring ouzel – 85% decline in breeding pairs; and
• Whinchat – 68% decline in breeding pairs.