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Twitcher Survey Online January 2018 Version 1

Understanding Motivations for Watching Rarities in the UK
Overview
 

Thank you for agreeing to participate in this questionnaire.

Your participation is voluntary and your responses are strictly confidential.

 

We are going to ask you questions about your birding activities with a specific focus on rare (vagrant) birds that you have seen in the UK.

 

We are interested in your motivations and the level of personal investment you make in this activity.

 

We are examining the activities surrounding rare (vagrant) birding as a means to better understand the values we place on bird species within the general area of wildlife conservation.

 

By “rare” we mean birds that are not typically found in the UK as defined by the British Birds Rarities Committee (BBRC).

 

“BBRC assess all records of rare taxa that are on Cat A of the British List. Cat A is for those species/taxa that have occurred in the wild since 1950. We also assess sightings involving a potential new taxon (species or sub-species). If the ID is accepted then the record is forwarded to the BOURC. BOURC then look at the record again, both to identification & particularly for provenance of that First record – provenance means that the sighting is of a naturally occurring bird.”

 

This survey has been designed to be completed by individuals and is suitable for adults and young people over the age of 16.

 

It is anticipated that the survey will take no more than 15 minutes to complete.

 

Should you have any queries with respect to the survey please do not hesitate to ask or e-mail us.  Many thanks in advance for taking your time to complete this survey,

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Dr Michael Brock (michael.brock@uea.ac.uk)

Professor Iain Fraser (i.m.fraser@kent.ac.uk)

Dr Dave Roberts (d.l.roberts@kent.ac.uk)