Bird Monitoring Methods

For most of the species breeding in the UK, standard recording methodologies were documented in a book Bird Monitoring Methods by Gillian Gilbert, David W Gibbons and Julianne Evans, published by RSPB in 1998. The authors have kindly allowed RBBP to reproduce the pages from this manual on our website. Click on the species names from the list below to read the text from that book. These methodologies should be taken to be the standards by which numbers of breeding pairs should be calculated, unless the RBBP has provided more up to date instructions under the Species Guidelines page.

Arctic Skua

Avocet

Bearded Tit

Bittern

Black Redstart

Black-necked Grebe

Black-tailed Godwit

Black-throated Diver

Capercaillie

Cetti’s Warbler [no longer reported upon by RBBP]

Chough

Cirl Bunting

Common Scoter

Corn Crake

Dartford Warbler

Dotterel

Ducks – generic methodologies

Firecrest [no longer reported upon by RBBP]

Garganey

Golden Eagle

Golden Oriole

Goldeneye

Greenshank

Hawfinch

Hen Harrier

Lesser Spotted Woodpecker

Little Tern

Marsh Harrier

Marsh Warbler

Merlin

Osprey

Peregrine Falcon

Pintail

Pochard

Purple Sandpiper

Quail

Red Kite [no longer reported upon by RBBP]

Red-necked Phalarope

Red-throated Diver

Redwing

Ruff

Scaup

Short-eared Owl

Shoveler

Slavonian Grebe

Snow Bunting

Spotted Crake

Stone-curlew

Water Rail [no longer reported upon by RBBP]

Whimbrel

White-tailed Eagle

Whooper Swan

Wigeon

Woodlark