Breeding and wintering bird distributions in Britain and Ireland from citizen science bird atlases

Abstract

AbstractMotivationWe undertook large citizen science surveys of bird distributions (atlases) in Britain and Ireland, aimed at quantifying breeding bird distributions on a 20‐year cycle and wintering bird distributions on a c. 30‐year cycle. We use these to generate spatially referenced information on apparent changes in bird distributions over c. 40 years.Main type of variable containedDetection of breeding and wintering bird species in grid squares during five periods, and changes in detection between periods. The combined distribution dataset contains 1,410,938 records detailing detections of 465 bird species in 3,880 grid cells in different periods. The combined distribution change dataset contains 1,297,791 records describing stability, apparent colonization or apparent extinction of individual species in grid squares between pairs of atlases spanning up to c. 40 years.Spatial location and grainGrid squares (10 km × 10 km) containing land throughout Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. The majority of data are at 10‐km resolution, but data for rare species are summarized at 20‐ or 50‐km resolution to protect sensitive locations.Time periodThe data represent summarized detection information derived from fieldwork during five periods: the breeding seasons 1968–1972, 1988–1991 and 2008–2011, and the winters 1981/1982–1983/1984 and 2007/2008–2010/2011.Major taxa studied and level of measurementBirds; their distribution derived from citizen science surveys.Software formatData are supplied as comma‐separated text files.