A Best Practice Guide for Wild Bird Monitoring Schemes

Book excerpt: This book summarises recommendations on establishing, running andimproving national wild bird monitoring schemes. The methodologyis described in details and includes field methods, samplingdesign, data management and analysis, and communication; includingcase studies from various countries.The Best Practice Guide is not intended to replace existingtextbooks and methodological papers. The aim is to guidecoordinators of schemes in designing and running a scheme in orderto keep high methodological standards and avoid obvious mistakes.The book has nine chapters covering planning a scheme, surveydesign and selection of sample plots or field methods, it tacklesalso the problem of bird detectability and distance sampling, datamanagement and analysis, and principles and recommendations forusing the results for nature conservation and communication. Casestudies come from several European countries and cover subjectssuch as sampling design, field methods, working with volunteerfieldworkers, and setting up an on-line database. Finalrecommendations in a form of a list of 'things best to do' and'things best to avoid' are part of the publication too.