SPECIES RECORDING PROGRAMME - WOODLAND BIRD SURVEY

The Wild Watch is a new project based in the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) on the eastern edge of the Yorkshire Dales. Nidderdale is one of 46 AONBs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland that have been designated because of their nationally important landscapes. The Wild Watch will enable people to play an active part in conserving Nidderdale’s natural heritage by helping them gather natural history data that will be used to improve habitats for wildlife. The project will combine the power of citizen science, a dynamic partnership approach and the latest research to gather natural heritage records, reconnect communities to their local natural heritage and pioneer a new way of delivering conservation action on a landscape scale.
Despite a big financial commitment and the concerted efforts of Government agencies, local authorities, third sector organisations, landowners and many others, 30% of our most valuable habitats and 50% of priority species are still declining. There is no realistic chance that ‘the extinction of known threatened species has been prevented and their conservation status, particularly of those most in decline, will have been improved and sustained’ on a global scale in the next few years, and it is almost inconceivable that the conservation status of nationally threatened species present in Nidderdale, including Cuckoo, Slow Worm, Green Letter Hairstreak butterfly and Fly Orchid, will have improved markedly by the next target date of 2020 that was set at an international conference in Japan in 2010.
The Wild Watch will give conservation bodies, farmers and the wider community the information needed to begin to reverse the decline of species and habitats of conservation concern in the AONB. Core partners comprise the University of Leeds, North and East Yorkshire Ecological Data Centre and Nidderdale AONB. A steering group, which oversees project development and implementation, includes representatives of Wharfedale Naturalists, Harrogate Naturalists, Yorkshire Naturalists Union, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust, Nidderdale Plus, Natural England, Environment Agency, Yorkshire Water, Harrogate Borough Council and North Yorkshire County Council.
50 species have been prioritised for survey. All species are known to be present in the area and are of high national and/or local conservation concern. Bioindicator and flagship species have also been included. All species are suitable for survey by citizen scientists and naturalists with simple and relatively inexpensive survey techniques.

The 50 species have been divided into 13 groups for systematic survey by transects or fixed point surveys (aquatic mammals, farmland birds, river birds, woodland birds, wading birds, reptiles, amphibians, bumblebee, dragonfly, butterflies and day-flying moths, nocturnal moths, flowering plants and flowering mountain grassland plants), as well as one group to be recorded by anecdotal sightings only (nocturnal birds)

These data will feed into existing datasets and create a reliable baseline that can be used for future monitoring and conservation planning. The data for 10 of these species will be used to generate Habitat Suitability Models (HSM) and fine resolution habitat suitability maps, which will inform Species Recovery Action Plans to deliver conservation on a landscape scale across Nidderdale AONB