RBBP: Bulletin - December 2013

Members of the Rare Breeding Birds Panel would like to thank everyone who has submitted data over the past year. We recognise that our work just could not happen without the contributions of all our data suppliers. Thank you! The 2012 report is now in preparation and will be published in British Birds in the summer.

The 2012 report — a preview

So what can you expect to see in the next RBBP report? 2012 saw the first breeding of Great White Egret in the UK, and a survey of Spotted Crakes, which led to the discovery of several calling Baillon's Crakes. In Scotland, Common Cranes were proven to breed for the first time in the modern era, and there was a breeding record of Scaup — the last time this species bred was in 1999, in Northern Ireland. There was an influx of Black-winged Stilts leading to at least one breeding attempt. All of these events will be detailed in the report.

Great White Egrets bred in Somerset for the first time in 2012 (Photo: James Gibbs)

Why submit records to RBBP?

The most important aspect of the RBBP report is the annual review of the status of our regular but rare breeders, at UK, regional and county level. And without data from all counties, patiently collected by local birdwatchers across the country and submitted to county bird recorders, these figures are less accurate. Working with the RBBP to collate these data is one of the most important jobs of the county recorder. Here are some of the important reasons to submit your records to county bird recorders so that they can collate them for RBBP:

• Your records are included in the overall UK population statistics for each species, providing real meaning and context to the records collected locally.
• Each submission complements the others and allows RBBP to build up annual totals of all the 80–90 rare species that breed in the UK each year.
• Definitive records of breeding of those rarer species that breed only occasionally is recorded for posterity, helping, for example, research and compilers of avifaunas.
• All records are archived safely and separately as part of the UK's ornithological archive, so that details are not lost in the future.
• The annual statistics are incredibly important to conservation and to science, and are most useful if they cover a consistent and large proportion of the UK's population of each species.
• Publication of the report provides feedback to the birding community.

Rare non-native species

The next publication from the RBBP, the triennial report on rare non-native breeding birds, will be published in March 2014. It will cover the three breeding seasons — 2009–11.