1 Reply by LBacon

  • LBacon
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  • Registered: 12-09-2006
  • Posts: 80

Re: Nest recording scheme cards

HI all,

I am about to spend some of my spare time attempting to create an equivalent of the British Trust for Ornithology Nest record card for R6.10.  I as yet have no idea how well it will work.

Basically, this card in its paper version has a location, grid ref, obsever, a set of habitat details, description of the nest location, and then several line for visits to the nest.  these latter obviously happen at a set of dates over time and have counts of eggs, young, and activity codes for adults, along with outcome codes (eg successful, predation, etc).  So, I thought that the recorder version might look something like  a card being an event, and each visit being an occurence.  Obviously, I may need to add some activity codes (I will work through Charles recent post re bird atlas codes to start me on that) but I wondered before I went too far if I was re-inventing the wheel and someone else had already done this?

Louise
Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Biological Records centre

2 Reply by Ian M Spence

  • Ian M Spence
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  • From: North east Wales
  • Registered: 30-06-2006
  • Posts: 193

Re: Nest recording scheme cards

Hi Louise

You are likely to find the task difficult, but not impossible. Do you know of the electronic form of the nest record card used by the BTO - the database 'Integrated Population Monitoring Reporter'? I suggest that before you do too much work with R6 you may wish to see this programme in action. It enables the user to store nest records and submit them to other people (eg Ringing Group secretaries or to the BTO). The BTO has an increasing number of nest recorders who use IPMR and they welcome this as the electronic data submitted are immediately available for analysis. I wrote the initial user guide for the nest recording process so could, and would be willing, to answer any queries you may have.

Check out the BTO website looking for IPMR - it is available as a free-of-charge download. The user guide is also available. (www.bto.org)

Hope this is helpful,

Cheers, Ian