Surveys and data collection
The county and national bird atlas projects are impressive examples of citizen science. Led by Berkshire’s then BTO rep, Chris Robinson, over four hundred surveyors carried out many thousands of hours of fieldwork for the Berkshire surveys alone. It is these surveyors and the many hundreds more observers who contributed records ad hoc that have made the new atlas possible.
The British Trust for Ornithology provided online collection of the data and help with its validation that has been immensely valuable. They were able to provide us with all 250,000 records for Berkshire within 12 months of the end of surveying. The Thames Valley Environmental Records Centre contributed the habitat map data.
The Atlas and Avifauna
Following the surveys, the BBAG team set out to revise and update the first edition of The Birds of Berkshire. Analysis of the quarter of a million records and turning them into maps, figures and tables was done by Renton Righelato. For the avifauna, 328 species accounts were revised by a team of writers led by Neil Bucknell. Chris Heard and Ken Moore provided advice from the Berkshire Records Committee. Art editor, Colin Wilson, commissioned new drawings of each species. The many authors, artists and photographers who contributed to The Birds of Berkshire are individually acknowledged in the book.
Generous sponsorship has enabled us to provide copies of the book to schools, libraries and other institutions and to provide this open access website.
The website
The website was designed and constructed by Jason Righelato to provide access to the maps and the data behind the atlas. The line drawings used here are those from the first edition of The Birds of Berkshire, Art editor – Robert Gillmor (Artists 1st edition). The content, copyright Birds of Berkshire Atlas Group, was entered by Renton Righelato.