The Birds of Berkshire Annual Report 2015 Published 2018 Berkshire Ornithological Club Registered charity no. 1011776 The Berkshire Ornithological Club (BOC) was founded as Reading Ornithological Club in 1947 to promote education and study of wild birds, their habitats and their conservation, initially in the Reading area but now on a county wide basis. It is affiliated to the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO). Membership is open to anyone interested in birds and bird-watching, beginner or expert, local patch enthusiast or international twitcher. The Club provides the following in return for a modest annual subscription: • A programme of indoor meetings with expert • Conservation involvement in important local speakers on ornithological subjects habitats and species. BOC members are involved in practical conservation work with groups such • Occasional social meetings as Friends of Lavell’s Lake, Theale Area Bird • An annual photographic competition of very high Conservation Group and Moor Green Lakes Group. standard • Opportunities to participate in survey work to • A programme of field meetings both locally and help understand birds better. The surveys include further afield. These can be for half days, whole supporting the BTO in its work and monitoring for days or weekends. local conservation management. • Regular mid week bird walks in and around many • The Club runs the Birds of Berkshire Conservation of Berkshire’s and neighbouring counties’ best Fund to support local bird conservation projects. birdwatching areas. • Exclusive access to the pre-eminent site Queen Mother Reservoir (subject to permit) This Berkshire Bird Report is published by the Club and provided free to members. Members are encouraged to keep records of their local observations and submit them, electronically or in writing, to the Recorder for collation and analysis. The informative and fully illustrated County Atlas and Avifauna, The Birds of Berkshire, published in 2013, can be purchased at www. berkshirebirdatlas.org.uk, price £35, and is available to members at meetings at the discounted price of £30. For further details of the Club and membership visit www.berksoc.org.uk or contact the Hon. Secretary: Sally Wearing, 9 Deans Farm, The Causeway, Caversham, Reading, RG4 5JZ telephone 0118 946 3125; e-mail [email protected] The Birds of Berkshire Annual Report for 2015 Contents Page Introduction and acknowledgements .................................. 4 Submitting records ................................................ 5 Articles Birding Highlights of 2015 by Ken Moore............................ 6 Branta hybrids in Berkshire in Spring 2015 by Richard Burness, Ken Moore and Marek Walford ................. 8 Common Rosefinch at Greenham by Lesley Staves.................... 10 Icterine Warbler in the Kennet Valley near Kintbury, June 2015 by John Swallow ............................................. 15 Red-necked Phalarope at Theale Main Pit by Andrew Merrick........... 16 Ringing at Hosehill LNR by Tim Ball .............................. 18 The Berkshire Bird Index 2015 by Renton Righelato .................. 22 Weather Summary for 2015 by Renton Righelato ..................... 24 Dragonflies and Damselflies by Mike Turton ........................ 25 Bird Report for 2015 Report for 2015 by the Berkshire Records Committee .................... 27 Systematic List by Richard Burness ................................ 30 Escapes, feral species and hybrids by Ken Moore .................... 110 First and last dates of selected migrants by Ken Moore ............... 112 Contributors to the Systematic List ................................. 113 County maps Topographical areas............................................ 116 Some birdwatching sites in Berkshire . 118 County Directory ................................................ 120 Bird-watchers’ Code of Behaviour................................... 121 Edited by Richard Burness and Renton Righelato Published in 2018 by BERKSHIRE ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB © Berkshire Ornithological Club ISBN 978–0–9553497–6–8 Price £7·50 Introduction This report, published alongside the 2014 report, still leaves us with more to do to reach our goal of getting these annual reports out within 18 months of the year end. Record collection and record review are now in good shape and the bottleneck is compiling the species accounts. If you would like to help as a species account writer, please get in touch with Richard Burness, County Recorder and editor of the systematic list. With the county records database now available online, there is less need to write accounts as lists of records and more opportunity for analysis and discussion, which I hope both writers and readers will find more interesting. One new searchable feature of the county records database that users might find helpful is the assignment of sites to topographical areas: swathes of broadly similar geology and habitat mix that can be used in analysing the distribution of records. A map showing the areas can be found on page 116. We do hold small numbers of back copies of many of The Birds of Berkshire Annual Reports, which are available from the BOC Secretary in return for a small donation to the Club’s Conservation Fund. If you would like to complete a run of reports, check what is available on the BOC website. There are also just a few copies left of The Birds of Berkshire Atlas and Avifauna (2nd edition 2013), which can be obtained from Brian Clews (brian.clews@btinternet. com). On the BOC website you will find amendments that we have compiled to the avifauna that arose from additional information received on some significant records subsequent to the publication and from errors that have come to our attention (http://berksoc. org. uk/ county-atlas/the-book/). Acknowledgements The preparation of the County bird report relies on the voluntary efforts of many people for data collection, species account writing, preparing articles, providing photographs, editing and, critically, the observers who put in their records. At the end of this report is a list of the observers whose records contribute to the reports. We hope the list is accurate: please let us know of any errors or omissions, for which we apologise. We are particularly grateful to our County Recorder, Richard Burness, who has edited the Systematic List and to all the species account writers who are listed on page 30. Our thanks also go to Tim Ball, Andrew Merrick, Ken Moore, Renton Righelato, Lesley Staves, John Swallow, Mike Turton and Marek Walford, who provided articles, and to the photographers who generously provided their excellent shots. Thanks also to Robert Gillmor for his beautiful cover picture of the Red-necked Phalarope. Renton Righelato 4 Submitting records Sending your records promptly and electronically will enable the County database to be kept complete and up to date. To facilitate review and report preparation, records may be sent throughout the year and anyway should be filed within three months of a year end. If you are unable to send your records electronically, we may be able to help: please contact the Recorder: Richard Burness, 20 Burlsdon Way, Bracknell, Berkshire RG12 2PH. Records can be entered on line at www.berksbirds.co.uk or sent by email to the Recorder [email protected] as an excel file or as a CSV file. Excel files should have the following eight columns in this order: Species, Site, Grid reference, Arrival date, Departure date, Number, Notes, Observer, Breeding status. Species: Required. If possible, please use the species name from BWP. Please do not use plurals. e.g. do not enter “Siskins” or “Canada Geese”, but “Siskin” or “Canada Goose”. Site: Required. If possible, please use the site names as used in these reports. Otherwise, please enter the site as the nearest landmark on an OS map and specify the grid reference in the “Grid reference” field. Sites such as “my garden”, “River Thames”, “3 miles east of Reading” or “by the A33” are examples of inappropriate site names. Grid reference: Four or six figure grid ref. The prefix, either “SU” or “TQ” should be included and there should be no spaces between characters. Grid references are only required for less well-known sites, or to give a very precise location within a large site. Arrival date: Required. In the format “dd/mm/yyyy” i.e. “01/01/2005”. For records that refer to more than one day enter the first date in this field and the last date in the “Departure date” field. Departure date: Optional. In the format “dd/mm/yyyy” e.g. “01/01/2005”. Number: Required. Whole number only. e.g. the following are not valid: “c10”, “10+”, “1–2”, “many”. Enter any quantifying information in the Notes field. Notes: Optional. Use the Notes field to enter information on age, sex, behaviour, breeding details etc. Any reference to other species made in this field will not be recorded for that species – please make a separate entry for each species. Breeding Status: Optional. Please use the BTO breeding evidence codes: http://www. bto.org/volunteer-surveys/birdatlas/methods/breeding-evidence. Observer: Required. Please enter your full name and include your middle names if you have any. .csv files should use the same eight fields separated by commas (whether or not they contain data) and note that any field containing a comma should be enclosed in double quotes. Thus, for example: Siskin,”Searles Lane, Burghfield”,03/02/2019,,10,Feeding in Alders,,MJT. Confidentiality: Confidential records should be sent separately but in the