Birds of Avon, an Annotated Checklist

Birds in Avon An annotated checklist This project started as ‘Rare Birds in Avon’, essentially a list of all the sightings of rare species over the years, but it has now evolved into a checklist of all the species recorded in the Avon recording area, with details as to how their status has changed over time, albeit still with a bias towards the rare and unusual. This first edition covers up to the end of 2017. I have divided species between regular, rare and scarce and each is treated differently. Regular species For these I have shown their status at five points in time, as follows; 1874 – taken from Wheeler (1874) which covers the ‘Bristol district’ which is not defined (although covers the estuaries of the Avon and Severn and Steep Holm) 1899 – taken from ‘The Birds of the Bristol District’, an article included in the 1899 BNS Proceedings. This defined the boundaries covered as follows; ‘on the north, a line drawn eastward from Aust Cliff to the boundary of the county of Gloucester near Badminton, on the east a line drawn from Badminton to Wells so as to include Bath; on the south the River Axe, on the west that part of the coastline of the Bristol Channel which stretches from the mouth of the Axe to Aust Cliff’ 1947 – taken from Davis (1947) which covered a larger area, bounded to the north by a line between Slimbridge and Tetbury, in the east by the Wiltshire border, and in the south by a line between Frome and Wells and then the River Axe to the coast. 1990 – taken from the 1990 Avon Bird Report, the first to show a status line for all species, or the next edition that included the species. 2017 – taken from the 2017 Avon Bird Report, or the last edition to include the species. I have also used the 2017 Breeding Bird Survey results to show the percentage change since 1994. Fuller details of a species recent local status can be found in the Avon Atlas, 2007 – 11, produced by R L Bland and M Dadds. The sources for status in 1874, 1899 and 1947 each covered a different area so I have had to paraphrase or adjust the wording to remove references to sites that are outside of the current Avon recording area. For those regular species that were rare or unrecorded 70 years ago I have also listed the first few records until they became widespread. Rare species I have classed a species, or a subspecies, as rare if it is either a national rarity or if has been recorded in twenty or less years in the three decades prior to 2017. For these I have shown all published accepted records where the site is in the current Avon recording area. Where a bird remains over the year end, or is presumed to be a returning individual from a previous year, the record is only counted, and shown, for the initial year. For species that were commoner in the past, or where there is confusion about past records, I have also included what is stated in Wheeler (1874), ‘The Birds of the Bristol District’, Davis (1947) and Palmer and Ballance (1968). Scarce species These are species that are not regular but which have been recorded in more than twenty years of the last three decades. I have treated these the same as for regular species (ie status at five points in time) but have also shown the number of years in which they have been recorded in the last 30 years with a table of the number recorded in each of the last 20 years. For those which were unrecorded 70 years ago I have also listed the first three years in which they were recorded. For some of the regular and scarce species I have included the largest count I can find, although I may have missed some, and others I have omitted as I am unable to trace them back to a published source. For migrants I have also included the earliest published arrival date and the latest published departure date. Many of the early reports did not include accounts for all of the commoner species, just a list of extra species that had occurred during the year, while some of the accounts were just a list of sites where the species had bred or been seen, without any dates. For these I have relied of dates mentioned in Bland (1992) or Hale (1991), both of which extracted data not only from the annual report but also from the monthly Bird News published by the Bristol Ornithological Club (BOC). Bland (1992) also consulted the original submitted records1 but mention no sites for any of the records. Sources used for records The current Ornithological Section of the BNS started in late 1922 and an annual bird report has been included in the BNS Proceedings since 1936. Initially this annual report was known as the Ornithological Notes then, from 1955, as the Bristol Bird Report and, from 1974, as the Avon Bird Report which became a separate publication in 1983. Throughout this publication the report, from whichever year, is referred to as the ABR. Copies of the BNS Proceedings are available online from the Biodiversity Heritage Library. The report only published records of unusual species after receipt of confirmatory notes; a list of the species that require confirmatory notes was included in the 1964 report and each report since 1983 Accepted records have been taken from these annual reports although some of the details have been expanded from other sources. I have also included records that have only been published in the Somerset Bird Report, these are marked [SBR]. I have also checked the annual reports of the British Birds Rarities Committee since its inception in 1958; records that have been assessed by that committee are marked [BBRC] 2. Accurate records are harder to find prior to 1936 and there is often conflict between various sources. Records have been taken from the following sources (and in which case the source is stated in the text); Davis (1935), Davis (1947), Palmer and Ballance (1968), Swaine (1982), Wheeler (1874) and Yarrell (1843). Avon Recording area The county of Avon was created in 1974 but disbanded 21 years later. The current Avon recording area covers the four unitary authorities of Bristol, South Gloucestershire, North Somerset, Bath and North East Somerset that replaced the county of Avon. 1 The concern here is how carefully the records were vetted, even when published in Bird News 2 those asterisked mean we hold the original description locally The Avon List By the start of 2018, and the move to IOC taxonomy, the Avon list stood at 345 species, with another two only identified to genus. However, eight of those have not been recorded for at least 100 years and a further six not for at least 50 years. Not recorded for 100 years Not recorded for 50 years Red-breasted Goose (1909) Black Grouse (1922?) Baillon’s Crake (1840) Little Crake (1967) Collared Pratincole (before 1881) Great Snipe (1950) Ivory Gull (c1864) Bridled Tern (1958) Sooty Tern (1885) Gyrfalcon (1962) Pallas’s Sandgrouse (1888) Arctic Warbler (1965) White’s Thrush (1871) Two-barred Crossbill (1895) Over the last decade an average of 229 species were recorded each year, with a high of 237 in 2011 and a low of 221 in both 2009 and 2015. References mentioned Bland (1992); ‘First and last migration dates for summer and selected winter visitors in Avon’ by R L Bland in the 1992 Avon Bird Report Bland (2003); Migration Summary by Richard Bland in the 2003 - 2006 Avon Bird Reports Davis (1935); ‘Waders in the Bristol District’ by H H Davis in the 1935 BNS Proceedings Davis (1947): ‘A revised list of the birds of the Bristol District’ by H H Davis in the 1947 BNS Proceedings Davis (1953); ‘Notes on the status and distribution of birds in S. Gloucestershire’3 Hale (1991); an unpublished document of notable records gleaned by S Hale from Avon Bird Reports and the monthly BOC Bird News Higgins (2017): Trends in Wildfowl numbers on the Severn Estuary by R J Higgins in the 2017 Avon Bird Report Palmer and Ballance (1968); ‘The Birds of Somerset’ by E M Palmer and D K Ballance published in 1968 by Longmans, Green and Co Ltd Rose (1985); ‘Unusual bird records for Avon, 1945 to 1985’ by H E Rose in the 1985 Avon Bird Report Rose (1995); ‘Avon’s rare and unusual birds, 1945 to 1995’ by H E Rose in the 1995 Avon Bird Report Rose (2000); ‘The Avon List, 2000’ by H E Rose in the 2000 Avon Bird Report Rose (2013); ‘Waders in Avon, part1’ by H E Rose in the 2013 Avon Bird Report Swaine (1982); ‘Birds of Gloucestershire’ by C M Swaine published in 1982 by Alan Sutton Publishing Limited 3 I am unclear where this was published, Martyn Hayes was kind enough to supply me with copies of a few of the pages TBOSG; The Birds of South Gloucestershire website Wheeler (1874); ‘List of resident birds, summer and winter visitors, and occasional stragglers, observed in the Bristol District’ by E Wheeler in the 1874 BNS Proceedings Yarrell (1843); History of British Birds by W Yarrell, first published in 3 volumes in 18434 Site Abbreviations The following site abbreviations have been used. ASW Avonmouth Sewage Works BG Barrow Gurney Reservoirs BL Blagdon Lake Severn shore and its environs between the western outskirts of Cl-Y Clevedon and the mouth of the R.

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