This thread is now closed. All that needs to be said has been. My official line is and always has been this:

NO INFORMATION ON NESTING BIRDS SHALL BE POSTED ONTO THIS MANCHESTER BIRDING WEBSITE FORUM WITHOUT PRIOR CONSENT FROM ME. THIS OF COURSE EXCLUDES THE ALREADY WELL PUBLISIZED BOLTON CHURCH PEREGRINES AND RAVENS AND ANY FUTURE PEREGRINE NESTING ON THE CIS BUILDING IN MANCHESTER, THE OTHER ESTABLISHED PEREGRINE SITE IN MANCHESTER CITY CENTRE MUST NOT BE MADE PUBLIC.

The end

-- Edited by Ian McKerchar at 19:30, 2008-04-13

I would send nest locations on all species even common birds privately to the county recorder. I wouldnt post any nest location on the forum as the whole wide world will be able to see it and its not just used by us birdwatchers.

Birds have a hard enough time breeding as it is and personally i think posting nest locations on the web just adds another to a long list they all ready face!
Defo keep the locations private is what i say!

I'd rather that all nesting information was sent to the county bird recorder directly, there is little reason to inform other birders of what's nesting at a location, whereas the smallest amount of information on what birds are actually present can be of use to anyone on this forum, so keep those posts coming.

Whilst there is little danger from posting that Coots or Blackbirds etc are breeding at Pennington Flash for instance, there's little point to it as we'd all expect them to be, I'm sure the BTO Atlas would be more greatful for such records, breeding records are important for survey work so we shouldn't ignore them, we should just not air them on here.

My post for Elton dated Mar 29th stated"swans nest near Bennies has at least 2 eggs", was this too much information? If so should nesting info for all species always be sent privately to the County recorder, or just for unusual species.
Cheers Ian

I had misgivings about entering records into the BTO atlas website, as you can see what the highest breeding status is. However they do say that for rarer species they limit the resolution, so for example Firecrest would only be mapped at 10km resolution.

see http://www.bto.org/birdatlas/taking_part/confpolicy.htm

I agree with you Simon, but won't egg collectors find general info about bird locations just as useful? For example, if I state that I have a pair of Firecrest in my garden, at nesting time, might they not just come to locate a nest themselves? I'm sure they don't just go to reported nest sites - they'll be able to work out where they are in the same way we do.

As for the Firecrests in my garden, I have had an unconfired report of a couple of Firecrest gathering nesting material, in Bury (alas, not in my garden).

As stated before, this website's stance is simply that no nests of any species should be disclosed on this forum, full stop. I hadn't realised that any post contained details of a Mute Swan's nest (should read them all more closely but sometimes I'm reading them on my phone whilst on nights at work!) but in future can I ask that anyone who has reservations about what to post or indeed reads a post containing sensitive information which I have obviously not seen or missed should contact me immediately (my phone number is freely available on the website) so I can deal with it, it's not a problem, one or two will creep on by genuine mistake but regardless of whether a nest site is widely known or not it's location will not appear on here.

your right Paul in this particular instance it probably would not have made any difference but why post the information anyway whats to gain from it?? trust me this website will be watched by egg collectors and putting locations of nests, mentioning eggs numbers or any breeding activity is just not wise. As Ian McKerchar said you should think very carefully before mentioning any nesting birds so just think before you post.

I think, in this case, it wouldn't have made any difference. The swans nest being so close to an area used by dog walkers, joggers, drunken youths etc. meant that it was always under threat from someone!

Ian,

I agree with Warfy-best to keep quiet about the nests. Not only do the birds have to contend with the british weather, flooding nests, egg collectors,etc- there are just the idiots with less brain cells than a pile of dog sh1t who will destroy anything that doesnt belong to them!!!!

Cheers

Riggers

I posted this a.m. from Elton mentioning that a Swans nest had lost all its eggs with no sign of predation i.e. no broken eggshells visible. Our conclusion( P.Johnson and myself) was that this could have been the work of an egg collector. Simon(Warfy) then posted saying that he felt that the whereabouts of any species nest should not be disclosed because of this potential risk. As I have previously posted on this site that this nest did contain eggs, I wonder if this was a mistake What are the views of others on this issue? Cheers Ian