The new Bird Atlas - Part 2

In a previous post, we introduced the new Bird Atlas and Shane Wolsey kindly gave some background information on how it was created. The success story we highlighted was Great Spotted Woodpecker. In this post, we feature another species that has had a lot of success - Little Egret.
The Atlas has helped to quantify, what has been the massive expansion in range of the Little Egret.  This species was recorded as a vagrant in just three 10km squares in the 1988-91 Breeding Atlas (one in each of England, Scotland and Ireland) and there was no species account in the published book.  Now it has confirmed breeding in 160 squares and a winter distribution in over 1500 squares! (see map below):

If you would like to buy Bird Atlas 2007-11 then follow this link: http://www.bto.org/shop/bird-atlas

Shane Wolsey (with thanks to Dawn Balmer and Simon Gillings)

BTO NI Office

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Distribution maps from Bird Atlas 2007-11 which is a joint project between BTO, BirdWatch Ireland and the Scottish Ornithologists' Club. Maps reproduced with permission from the BTO.