Lapland Bunting now 'B' rarity for this autumn

Steve Waite – County Recorder

At the end of August and throughout September 2010, large numbers of Lapland Buntings arrived in the north of the UK, with some sites in the northern isles of Scotland boasting triple figure flocks!

As the autumn progressed these birds flew south, and it wasn’t long before Devon had a ‘slice’ of the action.

1 October 2010

Steve Waite has taken over from Mike Langman as County Recorder.

Steve is well known to many members, particularly in East Devon, and takes over with immediate effect. All records will now go to Steve automatically when sent to the County Recorder by email

Mike Langman has now worked as County Recorder twice in recent years is now retiring from the DBWPS Council but will continue to act as Art Editor for the Publishing Group, working on the pictures and drawings that will be used in the Devon Birds Journal, including the Devon Bird Report.

Speaking at the September Council meeting, Mike Tyler, Chairman of the Society, expressed his sincere thanks and appreciation for the huge contribution that Mike had made to the success of the Recorders role and the society in recent years, on behalf of the council and the membership in general.

Steve will also take on the role of Devon Rare Breeding Bird Recorder which has recently been handled seperately by Mark Darlaston.

12 August 2009

Contributed by Gavin Haig

Amateur naturalists in the British Isles have a long history of diligent record-keeping. Birders (or birdwatchers if you prefer) have always played their part, willingly contributing to their county or regional bird report. These records constitute a huge and dynamic database, often going back several generations. Periodically they may result in the publication of a county avifauna, summarising and discussing the past, current (and perhaps future) status of the county’s birdlife – the latest Devon edition is in preparation as I type. This vast store of records charts the successes, failures, expansions, contractions, migrations and vagrancy of a host of species, and can be a valuable resource for not just the amateur, but also the professional scientist, in the fields of ecology, conservation and the like.

The point of the above preamble is this: Without YOUR records the picture is always LESS complete.

The categorisation of species as either County or National rarities is given in the listing at the back of each year's Devon Bird Report. You can also find this information on the Devon List & Checklist page, which includes a link to a downloadable pdf of the current Devon Checklist.

Submitting records of Devon County rarities

Please submit records of Devon County rarities using this Devon Rarity Form (44 KB Word file) to Steve Waite, the County Recorder.

DBWPS has published a number of Policy Documents over the years, including a series of documents relating to the handling and treatment of information and data relating to rare breeding birds.

Whilst a number of these papers have been prepared as guidelines, others have been specifically adopted as DBWPS Policy.

DBWPS Policy on Rare Breeding Birds (March 2009) – the lastest version of the policy document (entitled The Publication, Storage and Transfer of Data Relating to Rare Breeding Birds In Devon) is published here in full in PDF format.