Survey of breeding birds in woods around Whippendell Wood, Watford, Herts, UK (2002)

The following is a personal survey by means of dawn visits to the Whippendell Wood area W of Watford, Herts, UK in May/June 2002

Dates and times

11 May 5.25 – 7.50am (145 minutes)

25 May 4.25 – 6.30am (125 minutes)

1 June 5.25 – 7.45am (140 minutes)

4 June 4.05 – 6.30am (145 minutes)

8 June 4.05 – 6.35am (150 minutes)

Area covered

Survey covered all wooded parts of Whippendell Wood and Jacotts Hill area (c. 1.5 miles x 1.5 miles, or 580 hectares) (map), i.e. the region bounded by:

* North: Redhall Lane, Fire Tree Lane and Grove Mill Lane (but including wooded area in Westwood Quarry as far as M25)

* West: Sarratt Road (but excluding the residential area around Redheath)

* South: Little Green Lane and Rousebarn Lane

* East: Grand Union Canal, but including wooded areas on east bank at the west end of Cassiobury Park

i.e. including Whippendell Wood, Lees Wood, Cartpath Wood, Birch Spring, Harrocks Wood, Merlin's Wood, Merlin's Spring, Newland's Spring, Round Newland's Spring, Dell Wood, Waterdell Spring, Thick Spring, Long Newland's Spring, unnamed isolated wood NW of junction of Rouse Barn and Little Green Lane and all of wood on West Herts Gold Course, and alongside Grand Union Canal (following terminology of Watford Street A-Z atlas by Geographers' A-Z Map Company Ltd.)

The true area covered was very close to one square mile, and comprised almost entirely woodland of one sort or another.

Coverage

There may have been some double-counting due to mobile birds moving (e.g. tit flocks and woodpeckers) but most records refer to territorial males in song and the overall counts will in most cases be underestimates due to birds not singing and areas missed. For example, noticeably fewer singing Blackbirds and Robins were recorded from 2 hours after sunrise on June visits.

KEY:

Bold - Numbers are totals of territorial (singing) males, family parties or discrete locations were birds making other calls were heard (i.e. approximate number of territories)*

Normal - Numbers are total individuals seen/heard*

Blue - less than "average"

Red - more than "average"

Green - much more than "average"

Shaded - noteworthy (others can be excluded in many cases due to small sample size)

* Normalisation in lower table is simply achieved by dividing totals by total number of territories/individuals in each region

					Regions
Species		Canal	Jacotts	Golf course	Whippendell	Waterdell	Harrocks	Lees
	Total	333	176	118	343	163	60	134
Wren	188	50	19	11	50	29	8	21
Robin	155	23	22	13	47	27	11	12
Blackbird	141	21	23	12	43	19	5	18
Wood Pigeon	126	24	29	9	38	11	2	13
Song Thrush	96	24	16	4	33	9	2	8
Chaffinch	70	16	10	7	14	6	6	11
Blackcap	62	15	7	5	16	9	3	7
Great Tit	57	8	7	14	14	8	2	4
Blue Tit	56	16	5	11	10	4	2	8
Carrion Crow	47	13	5	3	5	16	2	3
Goldcrest	42	9	2	1	20	6	2	2
Jackdaw	41	25	2	5	2	1	4	2
Great Spotted Woodpecker	31	4	4	6	10	4	1	2
Coal Tit	30	1	1	2	12	1	3	10
Mallard	26	20	1	1	4	0	0	0
Magpie	19	3	6	5	2	3	0	0
Starling	18	16	0	2	0	0	0	0
Chiffchaff	13	2	1	1	4	1	1	3
Stock Dove	11	9	0	0	2	0	0	0
Hedge Sparrow	10	3	4	0	0	1	1	1
Mistle Thrush	6	2	0	0	2	0	1	1
Long-tailed Tit	7	1	1	2	2	0	1	0
Treecreeper	7	1	1	0	3	2	0	0
Green Woodpecker	6	1	2	0	1	0	1	1
Tawny Owl	8	1	1	0	4	1	0	1
Jay	9	4	3	0	1	0	0	1
Skylark	4	0	0	1	0	2	1	0
Common Whitethroat	4	1	0	1	0	1	0	1
Grey Heron	4	3	0	0	0	0	0	1
Swift	4	4	0	0	0	0	0	0
Marsh Tit	3	1	0	0	1	0	1	0
Pheasant	3	0	0	0	1	2	0	0
Goldfinch	3	3	0	0	0	0	0	0
Sparrowhawk	3	0	2	0	0	0	0	1
Canada Goose	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0
Moorhen	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0
Greenfinch	2	1	0	0	0	0	0	1
Nuthatch	2	0	0	1	0	0	0	1
Collared Dove	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Cuckoo	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	0
Cormorant	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	0
Common Tern	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Garden Warbler	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Swallow	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	0
Rook	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	0
Barn Owl	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Totals	1328	333	176	118	343	163	60	134
Mammals
Muntjac deer	8	1	0	0	3	0	4	0
Pipistrelle bat	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Red fox	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1

Normalised totals (in order to reveal trends in distribution across different parts of the wood).

					Regions
Species		Canal	Jacotts	Golf course	Whippendell	Waterdell	Harrocks	Lees
	Total	333	176	118	343	163	60	134
Barn Owl	1	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000
Wren	188	1.0575	0.7626	0.6585	1.0297	1.2568	0.9418	1.1070
Robin	155	0.5900	1.0710	0.9439	1.1740	1.4192	1.5708	0.7673
Hedge Sparrow	10	1.1928	3.0182	0.0000	0.0000	0.8147	2.2133	0.9910
Treecreeper	7	0.5680	1.0779	0.0000	1.6593	2.3278	0.0000	0.0000
Blackbird	141	0.5922	1.2308	0.9578	1.1807	1.0979	0.7849	1.2652
Song Thrush	96	0.9940	1.2576	0.4689	1.3309	0.7638	0.4611	0.8259
Mistle Thrush	6	1.3253	0.0000	0.0000	1.2906	0.0000	3.6889	1.6517
Blackcap	62	0.9619	0.8519	0.9076	0.9992	1.1827	1.0710	1.1189
Garden Warbler	1	3.9760	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000
Chiffchaff	13	0.6117	0.5804	0.8657	1.1913	0.6267	1.7026	2.2870
Goldcrest	42	0.8520	0.3593	0.2680	1.8437	1.1639	1.0540	0.4719
Common Whitethroat	4	0.9940	0.0000	2.8136	0.0000	2.0368	0.0000	2.4776
Great Tit	57	0.5580	0.9266	2.7642	0.9509	1.1435	0.7766	0.6955
Blue Tit	56	1.1360	0.6737	2.2107	0.6914	0.5819	0.7905	1.4158
Coal Tit	30	0.1325	0.2515	0.7503	1.5487	0.2716	2.2133	3.3035
Long-tailed Tit	7	0.5680	1.0779	3.2155	1.1062	0.0000	3.1619	0.0000
Marsh Tit	3	1.3253	0.0000	0.0000	1.2906	0.0000	7.3778	0.0000
Chaffinch	70	0.9088	1.0779	1.1254	0.7743	0.6983	1.8971	1.5574
Pheasant	3	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	1.2906	5.4315	0.0000	0.0000
Grey Heron	4	2.9820	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	2.4776
Cormorant	1	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	3.8717	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000
Canada Goose	2	3.9760	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000
Mallard	26	3.0585	0.2902	0.4329	0.5956	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000
Moorhen	2	3.9760	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000
Sparrowhawk	3	0.0000	5.0303	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	3.3035
Common Tern	1	3.9760	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000
Tawny Owl	8	0.5680	0.0000	0.0000	2.2124	1.1639	0.0000	1.4158
Wood Pigeon	126	0.7573	1.7367	0.8039	1.1677	0.7113	0.3513	1.0225
Stock Dove	11	3.2531	0.0000	0.0000	0.7039	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000
Collared Dove	1	3.9760	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000
Great Spotted Woodpecker	31	0.5130	0.9736	2.1782	1.2489	1.0513	0.7140	0.6394
Green Woodpecker	6	0.6627	2.5152	0.0000	0.6453	0.0000	3.6889	1.6517
Nuthatch	2	0.0000	0.0000	5.6271	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	4.9552
Swift	4	3.9760	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000
Swallow	1	0.0000	0.0000	11.2542	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000
Cuckoo	1	0.0000	7.5455	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000
Skylark	4	0.0000	0.0000	2.8136	0.0000	4.0736	5.5333	0.0000
Carrion Crow	47	1.0998	0.8027	0.7184	0.4119	2.7735	0.9418	0.6326
Jackdaw	41	2.4244	0.3681	1.3725	0.1889	0.1987	2.1593	0.4834
Rook	1	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	3.8717	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000
Magpie	19	0.6278	2.3828	2.9616	0.4075	1.2864	0.0000	0.0000
Jay	9	1.7671	2.5152	0.0000	0.4302	0.0000	0.0000	1.1012
Starling	18	3.5343	0.0000	1.2505	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000
Goldfinch	3	3.9760	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000
Greenfinch	2	1.9880	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	4.9552
Totals	1328	69.4127	38.3775	47.3628	35.1079	32.0757	43.0943	43.0143
Mammals
Muntjac	1	0.4970	0.0000	0.0000	1.4519	0.0000	11.0667	0.0000
Bat	1	3.9760	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000
Fox	1	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	9.9104