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Our autumn newsletter, featuring details of the aerial survey of nesting gulls in Shrewsbury, a report on Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) training by BTO Cymru just over the border in Powis, and a look back at the BBS year in Shropshire.

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A free and convenient way of storing your bird records online. BirdTrack lets you keep up to date with what others are seeing, view the latest trends, and contribute your data to BTO science.

No minimum time commitment.

Ideally you will have fairly good bird identification skills.
More information on the BTO website.

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We hope that you will have great fun participating in BirdTrack and that you will return to the website frequently to enter more data and to find out what's happening in your area and around the country.

National and regional summaries updated every night throughout the year.

View all of your own records and compare them with the regional figures.

Record on the go with BirdTrack Apps

Log your bird sightings anywhere in the world - Learn more about our mobile apps.

Works without a network/WiFi connection

'Smart' species dropdown for adding sightings, listing most commonly recorded species first

Sync all your existing BirdTrack places and upload everything into your BirdTrack account

Go beyond just data entry and use the app to

View a map of recent sightings

View target species that you haven't seen this year / ever

View your year and life lists

Delve into your records

Use the 'Explore my records' function in BirdTrack to view your data in a range of exciting ways.

View your life and year lists at global, regional or local levels

View maps of all your birding locations

Extract the data as tables and graphs

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We hope that you will have great fun participating in BirdTrack and that you will return to the website frequently to enter more data and to find out what's happening in your area and around the country. National and regional summaries updated every night throughout the year.

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Make your birding count - volunteer and support BTO surveys, schemes and projects.

From expert ringers and ecologists, to patch birders, garden enthusiasts and Cuckoo sponsors - we have a range of projects to suit your skills and time available.

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BBS volunteer. David Tipling

Make your birding count - volunteer and support BTO surveys, schemes and projects

From expert ringers and ecologists, to patch birders, garden enthusiasts and Cuckoo sponsors - we have a range of projects to suit your skills and time available.

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Browse the range of surveys, schemes and other projects available that need your support.

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The Red Kite in Shropshire 2005-25 report (August 2026).

It's 21 years since Shropshire-bred kites took to the skies after an absence of 130 years. Leo Smith has coordinated monitoring of the return and spread of the birds, supported by lots of dedicated volunteers, many of them BTO members.

Leo says "The Red Kite population is still concentrated in the south-west [of Shropshire], as are most members of the Raptor Group. However, the species has spread right across Shropshire, in all directions, and out the other side, so there are almost certainly a lot of nest sites and large roosts that we have no record of. Please send evidence of likely nest sites, and counts of big roost sites, to me at leo@leosmith.org.uk "

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Red Kites in Shropshire 2005-25 Draft Final August 2026

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The Historical Ornithology of Shropshire

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The Historical Ornithology of Shropshire

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A wonderful, free resource containing practically every public domain historical source on Shropshire's birds, including Shropshire Bird Reports, old newspaper reports of unusual species, and H E Forrest's The Fauna of Shropshire (1899), detailing a time when Corncrake were common, Turtle Doves were "Wrekin Doves" and finches were caught for sale in local markets.
Knowing what we had helps us to appreciate what we have lost and, in some cases, gained.

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February 2021

Histo has reached a major milestone, we believe it is "complete". After thirteen years in development, it has "closed the books" to new records after 31 December 2020 . Of course as occasional historical records come to light, which will undoubtedly happen, we endeavour to maintain by adding them Histo.

The recent move to and incorporation with Shropshire Ornithological Society's website here: http://histo.shropshirebirds.com marks it's permernant home. We appreciate the commitment of the SOS to maintaining Histo's unique material in perpetuity. Please ensure you have bookmarked the Histo site.

We still have some historical material to be processed for inclusion to the website; the items are already listed in the Citations List and Species Index on this page. We aim to have those additional items uploaded in the first quarter of 2021.
John and Peter Tucker
October 2019

Histo derives from JT's personal need for easy access to published material about the birds of Shropshire for use in personal researches. He has a long-held interest in historical ecology in general and in the history of birds in particular and it was in 2008 that he began by scanning all the Shropshire Ornithological Society Annual Bird Reports. It was John's brother Peter who suggested that the internet could make the information available to everyone and with his help Shropshire's website 'Histo' has become a unique county resource. The website remains the joint venture, Peter on keys at the control of the website, John doing the research and development of new material. Peter has continued his dedicated work without which the material would languish solely on John's home computer. The SOS kindly continues to cover many of the basic costs.

Histo has expanded hugely since inception and its move online in 2012. During the past five years of research for and drafting of texts for The Birds of Shropshire (Smith (2019) due to be published in December 2019) the team of authors found Histo invaluable. There are now more than 700 items comprising over 7,300 pages and the Species Index contains over 14,000 entries. Please have a look at Latest Developments for further details and our acknowledgements to the people to whom we owe our gratitude.

Histo is available as a link from the Shropshire Ornithological Society (SOS) web site and direct at website. JT maintains the sole paper copy which currently occupies twenty-one lever-arch files. The hard copy will revert to the SOS's library when JT is no longer able to maintain it.

The menu 'The Historical Record' lists All Historical Documents where all the material is located in chronological order. If you are new to this site you should have a look at the User Guide to be found on the Historical Resources pages.

The Historical Resources menu gives access to a range of useful items including the

Citations List of over 700 items, giving each its full citation and Item Number - essential for the paper version.

The Species Index has more than 14,000 entries, the Shropshire gazetteer has over 7,400 entries and there are some potentially useful county maps.

Citations of this work should read: Tucker, J.J. & Tucker P.G. (2012) The Historical Ornithology of Shropshire. http://www.pgt7.uk/sos/

John & Peter Tucker Autumn 2019

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The Historical Ornithology of Shropshire - Home

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February 2021 Histo has reached a major milestone, we believe it is "complete". After thirteen years in development, it has "closed the books" to new records after 31 December 2020 . Of course as occasional historical records come to light, which will undoubtedly happen, we endeavour to maintain by adding them Histo.

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Help us to find out more about Shropshire's Kestrels. We need volunteers to find and monitor nests, erect nest boxes, look out for breeding activity (1 March to 31 July) and report colour-ringed birds.

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Since 2011, the Red Grouse population on the Long Mynd has been counted by the co-ordinated efforts of volunteers at dusk on several evenings between late March and early May. Volunteers have included participants on the National Trust / SOS Birds of Shropshire courses, members of the local SOS, SWT and RSPB groups, National Trust Volunteers, members of the Strettons Area Community Wildlife Group, and other people interested in birds.

A survey is particularly important this year, as 2021 and 2022 were both disrupted by bad weather and we couldn’t do one in 2020, because of coronavirus restrictions.

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Red Grouse Project Recruiting Leaflet 2026

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The foundation of the Save our Curlews campaign is the location of territories by Community Wildlife Group (CWG) surveyors. All the CWG areas are divided up into 2x2 kilometre squares on the Ordnance Survey National Grid.  Surveyors take on one of these survey squares and visit three times, on dates to suit you around 1st April, 1st May and 15th June, about half a day each visit, so it doesn’t take much time. It’s easy to do, and surveyors are provided with simple survey instructions and a map to record sightings on.

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A rewarding survey, but one that requires good identification skills by sight and sound, and higher level of fitness, as it involves coverage of steep upper valleys, largely on sheep tracks.