A new look a Helford's birds

What a difference five years can make… and not always for the worse.

It was only in 1998 that Brian Cave's superb report on the birds of the Helford River was published in which he made the not-too-startling prediction: "Should the Little Egrets ever attempt to breed or begin breeding they would immediately become of national importance as a Rare Breeding Bird…"

Well, we all know what happened next (or, to be more accurate, not so much "next" as between Brian finishing his survey fieldwork and the Report being published!). The egrets did breed, starting in 1997; the rest is history.

Also in that same information-packed publication came the all-too-true comment that "…the birdwatching fraternity has not given the Helford River the attention it deserves." This year that situation is going to change for the better, too.

This spring and summer, the RSPB is running a tetrad-by-tetrad* breeding birds survey on the Lizard peninsula, including the Helford area.

It won't be easy. Helford remains, as Brian remarked, a difficult place to work from the birdwatching point of view: too many secret corners, difficult viewing points, restricted accesses.

This year's survey, though, will involve boatwork as well as foot-slogging, and the focus in the Helford complex will be on specific species.

They will include Little Grebe, Cormorant, Grey Heron, Little Egret, Mute Swan, Canada Goose, Shelduck, Mallard, Tufted Duck, Water Rail, Coot, Moorhen, Kingfisher, Grey Wagtail, Cetti's Warbler and Reed Warbler.

These are species that can, if necessary, be targeted for help from special programmes like those, for example, that are already being used on farms throughout the county.

To mention just three, the breeding status of Cormorant, Grey Heron and Little Egret (of course!) will be of particular interest. So - here comes the You-Can-Help bit.

If you have old records, special knowledge of the locality or think there is something the surveyors ought to know, get in touch with Claire Mucklow at the RSPB's regional office in Exeter. The address is Keble House, Southernhay Gardens, Exeter EX1 1NT. Telephone: 01392-432691.

You may be wondering how this all fits in with a certain other breeding birds study… Cornwall Birdwatching and Preservation Society launched an ambitious 10-year plan in 2000 to produce an atlas of all Cornwall's breeding birds. This year's one-off survey will in no way compete with that. All the records and information gathered will be fed into the CBWPS effort to make sure that nothing is lost or duplicated unnecessarily.

The new survey aims to establish a baseline for future monitoring and to produce an accurate, repeatable measure of the abundance and distribution of our birds.

So, by the beginning of next year, the hope is that the pioneering work of Brian Cave's "Birds of the Helford River" will be augmented and updated. And the birds of Helford River will have the attention they deserve.

Mike Lord

Editor - Brian Cave's "Birds of the Helford River" is still available at cost £5.50 + pp from me at Awelon, Colborne Avenue, Illogan, Redruth TR16 4EB (01209 842316)

* a tetrad is an area 2km x 2km selected within 10km OS grid squares to give representative sampling coverage

Extract from HVMCA newsletter No.26 Spring 2003