Nest Box Challenge - Pembrokeshire records to date

Browsing the BTO/Breathing Spaces Nest Box Challenge web site reveals that there are currently 28 gardens and 91 nest boxes registered in Pembrokeshire for this on-line garden nest-box recording project (an average of just over 3 boxes per registered garden). The gardens/boxes appear to be quite well distributed across the County in about 18 OS ten kilometre grid squares. Potentially this could give a fairly reasonable picture of box occupancy across the county.

In 2007 there were 60 submitted records. So far only 16 records have been submitted for the 2008 season (including records of unoccupied boxes). According to the latest results recorded box occupancy in Pembrokeshire in 2008 is just 8%!).

A degree of caution is required as at present we have no idea of the type of nest boxes registered, or of how regularly or consistently they are being checked. But do the 2008 results really reflect a very poor occupancy of garden boxes this year, or are further records still to be submitted? If you have registered boxes from your garden and have outstanding records to submit, then hopefully the "real picture" should eventually emerge.

www.bto.org/nbc for more information.