Winter Bird Surveys - its time to plan them now

Last winter was pretty busy - for an ecologist it is a time to catch up with admin and various tasks that have been put off from the hectic survey season.  It is also a time to catch up with report writing and getting up to date with long term projects.
However, last winter, the office based tasks were interrupted on a regular basis by the need to undertake wintering bird surveys for a number of sites.  Typically, these involve regular visits to a potential development site to record the use of teh site during the winter months.  Usually these involve monthly visits, although surveys may need to be more frequent and involve survey visits at dawn or dusk (or even occasionally at night) at sites that support wintering species from designated sites.
On a personal level, such site visits are really valuable in understanding how sites are used by bids during winter, and can provide useful information about the movement of wintering flocks of waders such as lapwing or golden plover.

It is good to start thinking about these now as migrating birds in particular are starting to arrive already.  

Winter arable field - Northamptonshire