Three weeks left

We are very much on course- 198 tetrads have now been filled in for first survey- and there are 60 more doing it on paper, and 88 so far have done the second survey- not surprising given the poor weather in January. The way February is going there will be a lot of breeding records before the month is out! Drumming woodpeckers counts as D for display- a magpie carrying a twig is B for building. I dont think it is worth putting in S for singing- even for Mistle Thrush- as wee should get better evidence in April.
One or two recent decisions- Any free-winged exotic should be counted-as the Guinea Fowl in ST68 or the Peacock in ST67- "funny" ducks, especially in parks, should technically go down as hybrid duck rather than mallard.
It is not yet at all clear when I will have sight of all the hard work everyone has done, but they are working hard on it. There may well be verification problems, and I will be in touch with anyone whose record I feel uncertain about. The species lists for 10km squares will include bird-track records, but may miss birds that have been sent in as records, but not put in for the Atlas, and I may have to enter them myself for completeness.
It is clearly going to be a poor Fieldfare year, and all tit species are down on last year as are Song Thrush, and Greenfinch. Blackbird are running at double last year.