the Barn Owl project report that inspired Jeff Martin to submit an interesting article on the history of this bird’s name. In the second half of the publication we have details of the outstanding descriptions needed to complete the 2012 bird list – can the birders concerned please provide this material as soon as you can. This plea is followed by an interview with the redoubtable Steve Abbott, the highly qualified Chairman of SORC. Then there is the BINS autumn and a full 2012 review followed by, perhaps, the last word on the White-tailed Eagle in Suffolk yarn. Next there’s a rare trip report (i.e. I’d like to see more submitted as they are such a good advertisement for SOG), yet another of Philip Murphy’s timely reminders of how things were, plus an authoritative article by Rob Fuller (BTO’s Director of Science) that presents Ash dieback’s implications for Suffolk’s birds. There’s also a full report on the sponsored bird race, along with some of the team’s reports. There’s plenty of other news too, plus an auction you might want to participate in, and Brenda Rafe has kindly submitted another
fiendish Wordsearch with which you can while away some wintry hours. More material needed Every quarter I enter a plea for more articles to be submitted which, thankfully, a few of you generously respond to (as you did for this edition). However, recently, there were several complaints about an article dealing with a Norfolk project. In my defence can I say that the reason for its inclusion was first, that it was a continuation of the Titchwell article that arose out of last year’s coastal erosion feature (which couldn’t have been included earlier as the project was not finished until spring 2012), while second, and more important, it was there because, frankly, too few members submitted articles for that issue. Hence my on-going plea to put pen to paper – otherwise you’ll just have to continue to put up with this Editor’s occasionally wayward preferences for ‘outsideSuffolk’ subjects. So I look forward to hearing from more of you in the New Year. It just remains for me, on behalf of the SOG Council, to offer you all the compliments of the Season and to hope you all have great birding experiences in 2013!
Views expressed in The Harrier are not necessarily those of the editor or the Suffolk Ornithologists’ Group
Mick Wright
The declines and increases of a few Suffolk Birds
T
he 2007-11 Atlas of wintering and breeding birds and its four years of fieldwork have been completed successfully. This epic piece of work could only have been done in Britain where we have an army of enthusiastic birders working in a voluntary capacity. 2
THE HARRIER – December 2012
The Atlas fieldwork was in fact a 20-year stocktake of all our bird species. The results of which will enable us to:
• Measure changes in range • Measure changes and map broad patterns in relative abundance patterns
• Map distributions, in Suffolk, to tetrad level
• Map changes in distribution • Produce population estimates • Help set conservation priorities Suffolk fieldworkers are to be congratulated, all 1070 of them, for achieving full coverage in all 1100 tetrads. Their commitment, hard work and expertise resulted in the largest ever data
