Buckinghamshire Bird Club

Although the majority of bird records are submitted by members of the Buckinghamshire Bird Club, we are always pleased to receive records from other birders.  We ask that only records that are reliable are submitted.  Please indicate if there is any doubt over the identification or origin of an unusual species.  For certain scarce species within the county, you may be asked to supply written “field notes” before the record can be accepted as part of the official county records.  Forms to use for the submission of scarce and rare species can be downloaded on the Reporting Scarce and Rare Birds page.

Bird sightings should be submitted through the “Goingbirding” database that is linked with this website.  Goingbirding has been used since 2009 and contains a huge amount of bird records for Buckinghamshire and are accessible to everyone.

The following pages my help you with submitting bird sightings :-

• Registering to submit bird sightings
• Submitting bird sightings
• Getting news of scarce birds out quickly.
• Using the Search features in the database
• Uploading photos of birds to the database
• Information in the database
• Reporting scarce and rare species

The species database can be searched on any of the fields shown below.  The first example will return all sightings of Phalarope species since the database started.  The second example returns all Herring Gull record from Little Marlow GP during 2016 and where the Notes field contains information on colour ringed birds.

A wild card “*” may be used in the search criteria.  This is invaluable when searching within the notes field but may be used in the other text fields.  See examples below.

Click here to read Searching the Sightings Database →

Apart from the Sightings and the Photos sections, other data that users may want to access is as follows.  Click on the links to visit that page :-

• Species – A list of all of the species in the Buckinghamshire Goingbirding database.  Alongside each species is a field that gives it relative abundance.  This field is used when users set the display filters (so only view species that are say “Scarce” through to “Very Rare”).  Also species that are set to “Scarce or rarer automatically post emails to the Bucksbirding email group and to the Buckbirdnews Twitter feed (unless  flagged sensitive or confidential).
• Sites – A list of all of the sites in the database and the relevant map reference.  By clicking on the map reference a map showing the site is displayed.
• Listing – Here anyone who wishes to publish there own lists may do so.  To view/edit the lists visit the Buckinghamshire Goingbirding Lists page.  The lists are not generated automatically so users have to manually edit these.  It is possible to create lists for :-
  • Bucks Life List
  • Bucks Year Lists
  • Patch Lists
  • Day Lists
  • Self Found List
• Contact list of database administrators

The following is a summary of the main methods in which rare bird sightings are publicised in the county in order to get the news out quickly and allow other birders to see the bird in question.
No one is obliged to inform anyone of their sightings, but many birders get enjoyment from allowing other birders to view a scarce bird that they have found. We have a good information network in Buckinghamshire, so that any scarce species found can be broadcast within minutes of the initial find, enabling other people to enjoy the sighting.

For more information open this post…..
Click here to read How to Get News of a Rare Bird Out Quickly →