Hi Mark,
I am replying on behalf of Judith as she does not currently have access to the internet for most of the day and may not have seen your message. Firstly many thanks for your offer of help with the Atlas. We certainly need as many people as possible to contribute to this important project. If you go onto the Atlas section of the BTO website http://www.bto.org/birdatlas/index.htm you can either register straight away or alternatively click on the link at the bottom of the page which will take you to http://blx1.bto.org/atlas/tetrads/open-tetrad.jsp You can then click on the map, or enter the 10km square in which you live, and see which tetrads are still available in your area. You can then send a request to Steve Suttill (BTO Regional Representative) via the website and he will allocate the tetrad to you. It would be best if you wait now until the breeding season before surveying the tetrad and do both winter visits in winter 2009-10. The instructions for carrying out the Timed tetrad Visits can be found on the BTO website at http://www.bto.org/birdatlas/taking_part/formsdownload.htm
You can also submit Roving Records via the BTO website for anywhere in Greater Manchester or the UK and Ireland. These are just as important as the TTVs and are in fact essential to ensure we confirm breeding of as many species as possible in every tetrad in GM. There are approx 340 tetrads in total in GM. If you multiply this by the number of species likely to occur in each tetrad you start to get an idea of how many records we need to be able to publish our new county breeding atlas. We have made good progress in 2008 but we need a lot more people to participate.

Cheers

Steve

-- Edited by Steve Atkins at 19:08, 2009-02-04

Judith,

I would like to be involved in these timed visits.

Is it too late for this year?

Could I do 1 winter and the 2 summer?

How does one cover 2km X 2km?

Mike Horwood

I would like to thank everyone in the county who has contributed records to this forum in 2008, on behalf of the Assistant County Recorders (Ian McKerchar and Steve Atkins) and myself, and especially to those who have used the county recording form (follow directions on the "sticky" on the Sightings page), because the volume of records these days means that it's impossible to enter everything up on the database, otherwise. A special thank you too to all those who have surveyed tetrads (2km x 2km squares) for the new Greater Manchester Atlas and the Nationl Atlas during 2007 and 2008 - coverage is going really well and we should be able to complete every tetrad at this rate by 2011. I hope that 2009 will prove to be bird-filled, and wish everyone a happy and healthy New Year. Judith Smith (County Recorder)