Looking good, the Cheshire Bird Atlas is out this month...details below for those who still get the chance to travel south of the Mersey.
Stonking Peregrine picture above is by Alan Williams, while the House Sparrow and Chaffinch portraits are by Ben Hall.
The book is written by Cheshire Wildlife Trust chairman Prof David Norman - press release/details below for those compiling Christmas wish lists already.
NEW BIRD ATLAS MAPS CHANGING TRENDS IN CHESHIRE
Some of the impact of climate change has been flagged up in a survey recording bird distribution in Cheshire.
A new book, by Cheshire Wildlife Trust chairman Professor David Norman, shows how the onset of warmer winters has resulted in a boom amongst populations of birds that would usually suffer in colder climates.
Once rare sights such as the Mediterranean gull are now breeding in Cheshire along with the Little Egret, and tiny resident birds like Goldcrests and Long-tailed Tits are much more numerous.
Waterbirds are also thriving in Cheshire, with Mallards almost everywhere and Canada geese and greylag geese more widespread than ever before.
Predatory birds have seen a similar increase, with Peregrines and Ravens both starting to breed in the county in the 1990s.
However, not all bird species have thrived.
One unfortunate decline has been that of the Yellow Wagtail.
Cheshire was once described as 'the county for the yellow wagtail', but this atlas shows them to have contracted by 67% in the region within the last 20 years, probably because of land drainage.
Farmland birds have also been hit hard, with the Corn Bunting, Tree Sparrow and Yellowhammer all disappearing from a number of areas in Cheshire, and Turtle Doves now extinct in the county.
More than 350 volunteers worked with David Norman on the bird atlas, which took three years to complete and is the county's biggest ever wildlife recording project.
The findings are compared to the last breeding bird atlas survey, which finished in 1984.
The 700-page book covers a total of 217 species of birds, includes 500 maps and more than 300 illustrations, all by local photographers or artists.
'Birds in Cheshire and Wirral: A Breeding and Wintering Atlas' will be published by Liverpool University Press in November 2008 and will cost £45.
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies...
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Chris Felton wrote...
Recent trip to Hilbre - 72 pale bellied Brent Geese, 2 juv Shag, 30 Bar Tailed Godwit, 100 Sanderling, Grey Plover, Ringed Plover.
Middle Eye had some flowers of Wood Sage (teucrium scorodonia).
Coach Road area (Kirkby Moss) - distant view of white goose with Pinks that could have been Snow/Ross's.
Autumn influx of Woodcock into LIverpool saw a dead one brought into the museum after flying into an office window on Leeds Street.
Posted by: Chris Felton | November 4, 2008 8:31 AM