92277 HOC Annual Report 2012 COVER_Layout 1 22/08/2014 14:32 Page 1 TheThe BirdsBirds ofof Herefordshire 20122012 HerefordshireHerefordshire Ornithological ClubClub Annual Report Annual Report 92277 HOC Annual Report 2012 COVER_Layout 1 22/08/2014 14:32 Page 2 Herefordshire Ornithological Club Founded 1950 Registered Charity No.1068608 President Keith Mason Vice President Peter Eldridge Vice President Nick Smith Officers Chairman Gareth Morgan Vice Chairman Gerald Wells Secretary Tom Weale Treasurer Jim Wilkinson Recorder Steve Coney Annual Report Editor Hilary Jones HOC News Editor Nicky Davies Meetings Secretary Gerald Parker Conservation Liaison Officer Brian Willder Education Officer Vacant Strategy Officer Vacant Publicity Officer Susanna Grunsell Other Committee Members John Pullen; Chris Robinson; Dave Coker Cover picture: A rare Cream-coloured Courser arrived at Bradnor Hill Golf Course in May Picture: Mick Colquhoun 2 elcome to the 2012 edition of Birds of Herefordshire, our W62nd annual report. And hasn’t it been an amazing year for rarities! We’ve had another Lesser Yel- lowlegs, a Little Bunting, a Pectoral Sandpiper, an as- sortment of other scarcities...and then there was the Cream Coloured Courser. It posed happily on Bradnor Hill Golf Course for twitchers from all over the country and it even made the national news on TV and in the papers. Now there’s a coup. Paul Downes, whose wife Christina saw it first, has written about the event on Page 14. It’s also been a year of hard work for Nick Smith and the Atlas compilers, but it’s really coming into focus now. See Nick’s report on Page 7. And we are happy to include this year again an annual report of the Garden Birdwatch scheme after a hiatus following the sad deaths of Ifor and Elaine Evans. Our thanks go to Ian and Natalie Buttriss for taking on this task. There are some addenda from earlier reports to be noted and on Pages 8 and 9 accounts are presented for the past two years, 2011 and 2012 – be- cause the 2011 Annual Report contained the 2010 accounts by mistake. My apologies for this. As usual I must thank Tony Eveleigh, John Pullen and Gerald Wells for all their hard work compiling and proof-reading; the writers who produced the Systematic List; County Recorder Steve Coney; and Gerald Parker for his wonderful drawings. Hilary Jones Above, Wren, and left, a pair of Starling. All drawings by Gerald Parker 3 Contents Chairman’s Report & Obituaries .............................Page 5 Harefordshire Bird Atlas Update 2012...................Page 7 HOC Accounts............................................................Page 8 Field meetings 2012 ..............................................Page 10 Weather Report.......................................................Page 11 Par for the Courser in Herefordshire ....................Page 13 County Bird List 2012.............................................Page 16 Herefordshire County Rarities...............................Page 18 Accepted Rarities 2012 .........................................Page 19 The Systematic List 2012..............................Pages 21–71 Colour Plates ..................................................Pages 49–56 Addenda ...................................................................Page 72 Observers 2012.......................................................Page 72 Summer & Winter Migrants...................................Page 75 Bird Ringing on Herefordshire 2012...............Page 77-92 HNT Nestbox Recording Scheme 2012........Page 93-101 Garden Birdwatch Report 2012..........................Page 101 Alphabetical Index to the Systematic List.........Page 102 Interesting Ornithological Sites..........................Page 103 Sites Map .............................................................Back Page ISBN 978-0-9554157-8-4 Vol 6 Number 12 Edited by Hilary Jones; published 2014 Price £5 (UK post free) 4 Chairman’s Report for 2012 OUR Committee has continued to work effectively on behalf of the membership throughout the year. Among the highlights are the continuation of the work of the Atlas of The Birds of Herefordshire by a team ably led by Vice President YNick, supported by numerous hard working club members and others. Other notable work has been done by Hilary Jones, who edits the Annual Report, and her team; Nicky Davies, who produces the Newsletter, and everyone who has contributed; Ian and Natalie Buttriss, who assemble the Garden Birdwatch every quarter from all the records which you send in; Steve Coney, who processes all the thousands of records sub- mitted throughout the year; Gerald Parker and Keith & Chris Mason, who have organised all the field and indoor meetings. The Birds of Herefordshire Vice President Nick Smith and his team are nearing completion of this multi-year task. The constant effort of surveying all the tetrads came to an end after five years, and work continued on the production of the Atlas, with the aim of publishing the book in the au- tumn of 2014. A majority of members of the Club participated in the collection of data and the preparation of the Atlas. Congratulations to everyone involved. Meetings The quality of indoor meetings continued to attract high attendance levels, in particular the Dr Walker Lecture, entitled “Wonderful Wildlife of Wales”, given by Iolo Williams in Bartestree Village Hall. Field meetings ranged far and wide, both sides of the border, giving members the op- portunity to visit locations they may not otherwise have explored, in the company of knowledgeable enthusiasts. The annual weekend away, ably arranged by Chris and Pam Bartlett, encompassed Sea- houses and the Farne Islands and proved as interesting and exciting as ever. Newsletter and Website After forty years as Editor of HOC News, Peter Gardner – and Joan – have decided to pass the task on to a younger member. Our thanks go to them for their consistently re- freshing output and every good wish for a long and peaceful “retirement”. From within the Club’s ranks we are fortunate to have found a willing volunteer successor, Nicky Davies, whose expertise will become apparent in future editions of the News. Our Webmaster, William Marler, has devoted seven long years to maintaining the web- site, and is standing down, leaving a fully functioning site for his successor. Thank you William. His work will be handled by a small expert team until such time as a suitable candidate is identified. HOC Records Even though most members have worked towards collecting data for the Atlas, numer- 5 ous other records have been sent to the County Recorder, Steve Coney, throughout the year. In every edition of the News you will find details of sightings. For the newer mem- bers especially, and for all members generally, this mass of information is a major reason for belonging to HOC. Keep up the good work. Even if you are less mobile than you would prefer, you can still be an active contributor by joining the Garden Birdwatch team, managed by Ian and Natalie Buttriss. No record is insignificant. In addition to all the Atlas work, members have been actively recording data for the Woodpeckers and Winter Thrushes Surveys. General news The Club purchased 10 locally made Barn Owl boxes for installation on farmland and premises. Our friendly association with Herefordshire Nature Trust continues, and we support each other whenever and wherever circumstances allow. There was general excitement when the first Cream Coloured Courser seen in the County for most of a century spent some time on Bradnor Hill. This surpassed the Osprey using a fishing lake as a larder, but if you saw either or both you have a good story to tell. Individual members have given specific advice to external bodies on Peregrine nest boxes, farm surveys, planning applications, Starling roosts, plant health and other related matters. Dave Coker has scanned all extant Annual Reports and has made a DVD containing all the information. This is a labour of love, and we are all grateful to him for devoting so much of his time to this project. As ever, my thanks to all members for their support throughout the year. Please maintain this enthusiasm and keep bringing positive new ideas to your committee so that the Club maintains its freshness and attracts new, and younger, members. Gareth Morgan Obituaries Peter McDougall Peter McDougall died on 27 January. He joined the HOC in the late 1950s and was a committee member in the early 1960s. He was a schoolmaster at Burley Gate but moved to Hexham, Northumberland in 1967, but he kept up his membership of the Club and kept in touch with us. Dr Dan Thomas Dr Dan Thomas died on 13 February. He retired to Hereford in the early 1990s and he and his wife Jacky joined the HOC until 2004 when his health began to deteriorate. Dr David Wells Long-standing HOC member Dr David Wells died on 27 May. He was a retired auction- eer and a keen fisherman. 6 The Herefordshire Bird Atlas Update 2012 THIS concludes the fifth and final year of all the Atlas fieldwork that has involved so many of us visiting those last few 2km tetrad squares and also following up under- recorded tetrads where breeding evidence was low. This work was organised by Chris Robinson and a band of roving recorders visiting those squares as part of the HOC field meetings. With others helping elsewhere it means that we achieved nearly perfect cov- erage over both winter and breeding seasons, and with the final closing date of October this year for submission of all records. The BTO were then asked to collate all our Herefordshire Atlas records at the end of the year. Further work on validation of all records will happen in 2013. We have amassed well over 160,000 Atlas-generated records via the BTO Atlas project and are going to consider the benefit of adding HOC annual records to the Atlas dataset in 2013. The Atlas steering group met twice this year to help programme the future tasks of combining all this work into a book ready for publication in 2014. An editorial team of five has been formed to develop and undertake the day-to-day tasks of overseeing this massive job led by our editor Mervyn Davies.