The app exploits the respective phones’ GPS facility to give accurate location fixes and, once you return home, everything you have recorded can then be uploaded onto your own BirdTrack account and the data automatically sent to BirdTrack. One of the most important learning’s of the evening was the realisation that using BirdTrack meant, if permission had been given, the data could be submitted automatically to the respective county recorder - so there was no need to make a second entry of the records. Also Online is not confined to birds - now it’s possible to use it to capture dragonflies and damselfly records too and, in time, these will be joined by other taxa. Once he’d finished his ‘live’ demonstration it was over to SOG members to ‘play’ with BirdTrack on their own laptops, tablets and/ or smartphones. Eventually we had to close this workshop at 22:00 and all agreed it had been a valuable experiment. In fact, five members of the audience signed up to BirdTrack on the night and five lapsed users (including your editor) were revitalised to use it regularly again. So, despite the low turnout, Nick was extremely pleased with such a positive result. Hopefully as a result of the presentation, plus all our articles and tutorials, more SOG members will get into the BirdTrack habit. Not necessarily submitting records of every bird encountered, but at least their more unusual and important sightings. So let’s all make an effort to log it, not lose it!
Book Reviews Chris Courtney
Fighting for birds by Mark Avery Unlike Chris Packham, as exclaimed in his enthusiastic foreword, circumstances didn’t permit me to consume this book in a single sitting. Nonetheless, I did enjoy reading much of it, in some fairly large chunks. This was due in no small part to Mark’s lively and ebullient character, which manifests throughout; from the face beaming out from the front cover, through the ensuing selection of semi-biographical and theme-related chapters, liberally peppered with a sprinkling of interesting and sometimes downright juicy anecdotes, to the final sections, where some of the key questions facing 21st century UK conservation policy are considered.
36
THE HARRIER – M arch 2013
However, ‘Fighting for Birds’ does far more than entertain. At its core, the book sets out with admirable clarity, a picture encompassing pretty much the entire landscape of nature conservation over the past 25 years or more. The full range of options, complete with case study examples, available to a sizeable conservation organisation such as the RSPB, are examined and assessed. Covering the preservation of special places, the re-creation and re-connection of habitats, and the pros and cons of species re-introductions; the art and the science of determining conservation priorities and resource allocation, are described and explained. This is all set out, against the context of the many predominant human activities, from farming and power generation to demands for new airports, that continue to put pressure on the natural world and on many of our most cherished species. Mark broadly outlines these issues together with an account of the relevant legislative framework, that
