Birds
County Recorders: West area Chris Gregory, North-east area Richard Walden, South-east area Steve Fryett
See Map for details of areas
Suffolk’s Priority Bird Species
Key
UK BAP Priority Species – Listed as a conservation priority under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan.
Suffolk Character Species – A species closely associated with Suffolk’s landscape and natural identity.
Suffolk LNRS Key Species – Identified as a priority for recovery under Suffolk’s Local Nature Recovery Strategy.
Birds are by far the most popular taxonomic class for naturalists in the county. Most recording is carried out by members of the Suffolk Bird Group (SBG, formerly the Suffolk Ornithological Group), whose website includes a useful Guide to recording Birds in Suffolk. Records of rarities, and applications for access to confidential data, are handled by the Suffolk Ornithological Records Committee (SORC). Suffolk Birds is published annually by Suffolk Naturalists’ Society and reviews the previous year’s records; back issues of the SBG Newsletter The Harrier are also available online.
All correspondence used to compile the annual Bird Report since 1973 is held at SBIS, roughly sorted and coded into date order. At the end of each year, records are collated to produce the report, and a copy is stored at SBIS.
Two tetrad-level surveys have been undertaken across the county. The first ran from 1988–92, with the initial three years organised in conjunction with a national BTO survey. This work informed The Birds of Suffolk, a provisional atlas produced in 1993, followed by a full atlas incorporating tetrad survey data and other records held at SBIS, published in 2003. A second county tetrad survey, run in parallel with the BTO National Survey, was undertaken between 2007 and 2011; its results were compiled by Margaret Regnault to produce the Suffolk Bird Atlas.
For help with identification, visit our Species Identification Guides page.
Major Publications
- The Birds of Suffolk. Piotrowski (2003)
- Easy Birdwatching Again. (2002, SOG)
- Provisional Atlas of Breeding Birds in Suffolk. Sanford (1993)
- Suffolk Bird Report 1952–2014
- The Birds of Estuaries Enquiry have published a Suffolk Estuaries Report since 1986–7.
- The Birds of Suffolk. Payn (1962)
- A History of the Birds of Suffolk. Ticehurst (1932)
- Catalogue of the Birds of Suffolk with an introduction and remarks on their distribution. C.C. Babington (1884–1886, London)
Landguard, Minsmere and the Redgrave Ringing Group also produce annual reports.