Spinkyblurb

I recently completed an online course from the University of Oxford's Continuing Education Department , introducing me to the joys of GIS (Geographic Information Science/Systems) - I've always liked browsing maps, so to be able to create my own is just brilliant! I thought I'd share my first map(s) - all about Curlew (CU), Lapwing (L) and Snipe (SN) in East Norfolk, which happens to be where I have been surveying farmland for evidence of breeding of these declining waders for the RSPB.  I gathered species presence data from BTO's BirdTrack records. BirdTrack is a citizen science project in which birders record lists of their sightings in 1km tetrads (fancy word for square) and upload them to the BirdTrack site, usually via the app, so that the clever bods at BTO can gain an insight into population trends and other details, such as the effect of climate change, important for their conservation. It's great at any time of the year to see what is going on in almo...

Peewit, Lapwing, Green Plover, Vanellus vanellus , whatever you call them, they're in big population decline here in the UK. I'm a scientist, so here's a graph showing the data from BTO that proves it (y axis is a smoothed population index & green indicates 85% confidence limits).  Adult Lapwing showing off gorgeous feather colours & a jaunty crest. Origins of the Lapwing name hail from Middle English lappewinke and lapwyngis , and back even earlier to the Old English  hleapewince , all of which mean 'leap' and 'wince' or 'waver, move rapidly'. It's descriptive, as the Lapwing appear to make a big leap  when they take to the air, and when on the ground they scuttle about quite rapidly. In that respect I'd hardly call them wavering, as I shall highlight below. However, when they're foraging they pause to listen, and patter on the mud using a foot, which increases their success rate in finding and catching invertebrates....