Bird Atlas 2016-2020

The River Thame Conservation Trust Bird Atlas 2016 – 2020 is available online for anyone to use.

Up until now very little was known about the birdlife of the River Thame catchment. To remedy this issue, River Thame Conservation Trust undertook a volunteer-led, catchment-wide bird survey to create the River Thame Bird Atlas 2016-2022.

The Numbers

A team of 63 volunteers carried out winter and summer bird surveys across 236 different survey areas covering the whole of the river catchment (over 675 km²). The group of volunteers conducted 935 survey visits, walking for c. 3,785 hours and found an impressive153 species in the catchment.

Records have found some really exciting and rare birds such as Hawfinch and Merlin. Records have also demonstrated breeding of less common birds such as Goosander and Curlew as well as charted the distribution of our more common breeding species such as Blackcap, Whitethroat and Chiffchaff.

The project has been delivered in partnership with the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) which has allowed the comparison of records from the national Bird Atlas 2007-11 and helped map changes in populations over 10 years including the increased range of species such as Little Egret and Raven.

RTCT is very proud to make this data available through our online Atlas, the only one of its kind across a river catchment in the UK.

We would like to thank our Trustee, Nick Marriner, for his hard work and dedication in leading this project over the years.

The project has only been made possible with the generous funding provided by:

The Buckinghamshire Bird Club

Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Environmental Records Centre

Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Natural Environment Partnership

Trust for Oxfordshire's Environment

Thames Valley Environmental Records Centre

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