Banbury Ornithological Society - Short and Long Day Counts

Every year two full-day counts are held across the entire BOS area. The first is held in early January from 08:00-16:00 and the second in early May for 12 hours. The surveys complement the WRSS and SRSS in providing a count of the total number of species across the entire region, not just specific sites.

The surveys are conducted as a team, with the aim to field at least one team per 100-km square. For observers, the incentive is to beat the par species count of previous years, with awards given to the team most over par. A second award is provided for finding the "star" species of the day.

The comparitive results over the years supplements the findings from the other surveys, giving us confidence in the survey results.

UK currently holds approximately a quarter of the global Curlew population, with estimates for England of about 30,000 pairs. National monitoring data show that this population has been in long-term decline since the 1970s and has almost halved in the UK over the last 20 years. In lowland southern England, the population has declined to about 500 pairs, with many colonies on the verge of local extinction. Read more ...

Great Black-backed Gulls: from populations to individuals - Sam Langlois from BTO Scotland

The Great Black-backed Gull is one of the North Atlantic’s most conspicuous and largest seabirds — yet much of its ecology remains poorly understood. This talk will present new insights into global population trends and foraging ecology, focusing on diet and GPS tracking studies undertaken on the Isle of May, Scotland. Read more ...

Our annual winter count, carried out by teams of observers in each of the twelve 10km square, to record the number of bird species seen between 8am and 4pm. Read more ...

Short and Long Day Counts

The BOS Curlew Recovery Project

9 February 2026 - Meeting via Zoom @ 7.30pm

Short day count: 3 or 4 January 2026