Gateshead Birders

Foreword
To many people it might seem a little strange to write a book about the birdlife of Gateshead! After all Gateshead is a predominately urban area, with an industrial history, a large population and, one might think, not a great deal to offer in the way of wildlife or birds. This is most definitely not the case! In writing this book it has been our intention to achieve two things. Firstly we wished to document as much as possible of the available information about birds in the borough of Gateshead and, secondly, we hoped to prove to those people who might "doubt" the importance of the area for birds that they were mistaken in their belief!

It is our hope that this work will encourage other birdwatchers not to dismiss their immediate surroundings in exchange for rarities, or the excitement of the "chase"! Increasing pressure on habitats, and on birds themselves, means that birdwatchers need to acquire ever more detailed knowledge of their surroundings in order to protect them for birds and other wildlife. One of the best ways of building up this knowledge is for birdwatchers to get to know and understand their "local patch". Gateshead is an area in which this principle has been followed for many years and a fund of historical material has been built up by a series of active ornithologists. Last century Thomas Robson of Swalwell was the foremost ornithologist and a whole series of other birdwatchers and ornithologists have maintained his tradition of careful local study up to the present day.

Gateshead has a wide variety of birds, a range of habitats, and some wonderful localities for birdwatchers to enjoy them in. However, in this, Gateshead is not unique, there are "riches" to be found on almost everybody's doorstep, if only people take the time to look more closely!

About the Authors
The authors of this book, Keith Bowey, Stephen Rutherford and Stephen Westerberg, are employed by Gateshead M.B.C.'s Department of Leisure Service's as Countryside Wardens and are based at the Thornley Woodlands Centre, near Rowlands Gill. They are all active local ornithologists who have "worked" the Gateshead area for a number of years. The three are also licensed bird ringers, being members of the Durham Ringing Group, and have contributed extensively to the work of the Durham Bird Club in recent years.

About the Book
Throughout the text of the book reference is made to the "recording area" of the borough, but what exactly is this? The whole of Gateshead Borough falls within the larger recording unit of the Durham Bird Club. This organisation records and documents sightings of birds anywhere between the Rivers Tyne and Tees, an area of land of which Gateshead forms the most north-westerly portion. For simplicity's sake the recording area used for this present work is the modern-day boundary of the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead, as it stands at the time of writing. Hence any bird that has been recorded within this boundary, in past or present times, qualifies as a bird of Gateshead! Obviously this boundary has been influenced as much by political and historical considerations as it has by geological and biological factors. This is undoubtedly a somewhat arbitrary way of documenting a list of species, but it is convenient as it provides a clear and easily identified cut off point for deciding on the validity of records. Due to this reliance on a species being recorded on a given side of the borough boundary to be called a "Bird of Gateshead", it was thought that readers might be interested to know of some of the species that didn't quite make it "over the line" and thereby on to the list. These can be found in Appendix 1. To give readers an idea of the spread in time of the various records it was felt necessary to differentiate between historical and modern records. Due to the recently increased popularity of birdwatching and the advances in local ornithology as a result of the formation of the Durham Bird Club, in 1974, it was decided that all records prior to 1970 should fall into the historical category and anything after this time would be considered "modern".

A total of 236 species have been recorded in Gateshead with another two being noted only as a "released gamebirds". Of this total about 140 can be considered as regular visitors, 31 have been recorded on only one or two occasions and 23 are known only from historical sightings. The remainder of species occur as scarce or occasional visitors.

The main body of the book's text consists of the systematic list, which documents all species of bird so far recorded in Gateshead. For each species there is a status statement, for example "Scarce summer visitor", the text documents historical information wherever possible, as well as the current occurrence patterns of species. Each species text gives an idea of population size for those birds breeding in the borough, this is expressed either as an estimate of the number of pairs or the percentage total of kilometre squares in which the species was recorded during the 1986-87 breeding birds of Gateshead survey, (for details of this survey see the section on "The Birdwatchers of Gateshead"). The survey attempted to discover all species present in each kilometre square of the borough on a simple; "present, probable, or confirmed breeding" system. Complete survey coverage of the borough was not quite achieved, the final percentage cover being approximately 85%. The text also includes a brief summary of any interesting ringing information available for the species. For rare species all known sightings within the borough are listed. The following phrases are used to describe the status of the species, although it must be remembered that some species may vary from one year to another:

Rare - less than three records or pairs per year or season,
Scarce - between four and 15 records (or pairs),
Widespread - between 16 and 25 records or pairs,
Common - between 26 and 40 records or pairs,
Abundant - over 41 records or pairs.