Where is the best place to go birding in the B. O. G. recording area? That is a hard one. What do you want to see? Do you want to sit in a hide? Do you prefer to walk? Are rivers, wetlands and reservoirs your scene, or the woodlands, or open moorland?

Well we do have all those various habitats within our area, some far better represented than others, so let’s examine these in more detail. I have used our record data-base to try to discover just which ‘special areas’ in B. O. G. are your favorites, and to establish, if possible, which of these have been the most productive during a recent fifteen year period. I have chosen 1990 to 2004 (inclusive), sifting through well over 150,000 records on a biennial basis, i.e. 1990, 1992, 1994 etc. This has given me a whole welter of statistics, many quite logical and reasonable, and often, some quite puzzling. When these are considered in conjunction with the relevant annual reports, some form of logic often does begin to appear.

Sometimes a location is popular because of the species which regularly turn up there. Sometimes, I suspected that the location has built up a reputation over the years, drawing in a faithful group, who by their very presence, find a good number of species. Occasionally one dedicated observer, staying faithful to one specific site, will submit hundreds of records for that site alone. Should that observer’s records then fail (for various reasons), in subsequent years, the established pattern will change radically.

The first table illustrates the ‘Top ten’ sites based on numbers of records received throughout the chosen period. I have drawn up this table simply by adding the numbers of records submitted for each site during these particular years, and thus arrived at the best ten.

Key to table 1
BD Barden CD Chellow Dene CHK Chelker Reservoir DC Denholme Clough DPW Dob Park Wood EGP Elland Gravel Pits
ESW Esholt Sewage Works FR Fewston Reservoir HM Harden Moor KN Knotford Nook KEX Kex Gill Quarry LR Leeshaw Reservoir
LMR Leeming Reservoir LWR Lindley Wood Res. MSW Marley Sewage Works OGP Otley Wetland NR
PC Paul Clough, Oxenhope SB Stockbridge Res. SI St. Ives Estate SWR Swinsty Reservoir
TMR Thornton Moor Reservoir TI Timble Ings TC Tong Cockersdale THB Toad Holes Beck WG Whetstone Gate COP Copley

Only three sites manage to achieve an inclusion in every year, namely Otley Wetland, Thornton Moor Reservoir and Lindley Wood Reservoir. Others, like Chelker, in the early nineties rode on a wave of optimism and popularity after successes of earlier years (Sabine’s Gull, Slavonian Grebe etc) and thus scored quite highly. Chelker also profited from extra attention following the construction of the wind farm there in 1992. By 1998 however, Chelker had fallen from favour, never to achieve the list again.

Others were ‘one day wonders’. Why, for example, should a location like Whetstone Gate, steadily watched by a few keen observers at migration times for Wheatear, Ring Ouzel etc, but seldom apart from that, suddenly achieve such popularity to reach 8th place in 2002, then never appear again? In a word (or rather two words) Purple Sandpiper, that remarkably confiding little wader, which stayed there for four days, giving wonderful close views and boosting the statistics for that specific site. In exactly the same way Elland Gravel Pits enjoyed much popularity in 1990, when a Spotted Sandpiper stayed there for over a month, and the very popular Jack Snipe boosted Stockbridge way up the list in the same year.

The Barden area records are not included on the list for 1990, as there were only 23 records submitted from there that year. From 1992 this site steadily rose through the annual lists, almost topping them in 1994, when almost 2000 records were received, the majority coming from the very popular watchpoint at Barden Scale.

Clearly another huge draw for large numbers of records is the presence of water. Most of the locations on this first table are either wetlands, like Otley Wetland (ex O. G. P.) and Stockbridge or reservoirs. When the Little Stint ‘invasion’ of 1996 occurred, records increased rapidly from Chelker, Lindley Wood, TMR, Fewston etc. Our birders certainly enjoy wandering around these water features, finding birds as they do so.

In more recent years the dedication of a small group of enthusiasts, plotting the progress of our migrant birds, has boosted the records of such sites as T. M. R. and Denholme Clough. Although this activity is spread over a relatively short period of time in the year, and undertaken by very few recorders, large amounts of data are gathered, and these are clearly reflected on the table.

Working through Table 1 with the various annual reports to hand is very interesting, and even more so when the data base is also available. A check on a particular location’s records of fifteen years ago can reveal many fascinating insights as to what went on in our Group at that time. Many places have changed, like Knotford Nook, once, with O. G. P. the ‘king’ of Lower Wharfedale. Others have disappeared completely, like Ogden’s Pond near Knotford, Sugden End and Low Moor Tips. Where are the big gulls now? So too have many personalities, often associated with a specific site. One observer submitted well over 1000 records for the Tong Cockersdale area from 1990 to 2000. Now we know little about the status of such species as Willow Tit which he regularly recorded there.

Table 2 Top Ten Sites for Records Received 1990 - 2004
1 Otley Gravel Pits (now Otley Wetland Nature Reserve)
2 Thornton Moor Reservoir
3 Lindley Wood Reservoir
4 Barden
5 Knotford Nook
6 Stockbridge Reserve
7 Chelker Reservoir
8 Leeshaw Reservoir
9 Timble Ings
10 Elland Gravel Pits

Table 2 lists all the records from each site, over the selected period of years, added together to produce a final ‘Top Ten’.

It includes four reservoirs, two of them situated in quite high moorland areas (T. M. R. and Leeshaw), one intermediate though quite exposed (Chelker), and the fourth in a lowland valley (Lindley Wood). there are four wetland-based locations (O. G. P, Knotford Nook, E. G. P, and Stockbridge), with the remaining two comprising a large, mainly conifer plantation, surrounded by moorland, and the final one a mixture of moorland, cultivated valley and mixed woodland. Though this selection appears varied and quite wide-ranging in habitat, our area as a whole does lack sites favourable for waders. Our reservoirs tend to be steep-sided, quickly running into deep water, with not many of the shallow margins so much favoured by wading birds. High water levels at T. M. R. for example during wader passage time, can usually result in few birds calling in. This is reflected at most of our other sites.

So if these top ten sites have produced the highest numbers of records, presumably they will also be those most often visited by local birders. Surprisingly, this is not always the case, as Table 3 below shows.

Table 3 Top Ten for Birders submitting records per annum over the selected 15 years
1 Barden 23.00
2 Lindley Wood 20.60
3 Timble Ings 20.30
4 Otley Gravel Pits (Otley Wetland Nature Reserve) 18.25
5 Knotford Nook 15.75
6 Leeshaw Reservoir 14.50
7 Chelker Reservoir 13.50
8 Thornton Moor Reservoir 8.00
9 Elland Gravel Pits 7.25
10 Stockbridge -
N. B. Stockbridge records are regularly taken from the log in the hide, with no note of the individual observers.

Chelker, Lindley, Knotford Nook and E. G. P. all occupy the same or within one position on both tables. Leeshaw occupies a similar position, only two places different. However, the visitors to O. G. P, only fourth place on Table 3, clearly submit an impressive number of records, lifting that site to top spot on Table 1. T. M. R’s position is even more dramatic, with an average of only eight observers submitting records per annum, yet lifting that site to 2nd place on the records received table. Some dedicated and systematic recording is clearly going on at this site.

One could conclude that if a site features high on Table 3 but low on Table 1 then more records need to be handed in from that site! If it’s high on Table 1 and and low on Table 3, then the observers at that site are certainly making our recorder’s job an easier one!

It would be interesting to repeat this ‘Top Ten’ exercise in another few years. Hopefully new sites will feature, illustrating our interest in the local area, and our desire to cover that area as comprehensively as we can.

John Topham