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The GRMG website opened on December 16th 2014. Yesterday marked the end of our first complete calendar month of accepting records of raptor sightings. We would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to submit their records, and we very much hope that people will continue to do so. A total of 179 records were submitted in the month of January, with a total of 242 birds recorded across 14 species – not a bad start for a fledgling group! At the top of the list, perhaps unsurprisingly, was the Common Buzzard with 73 records, followed by the Kestrel with 52, and the Sparrowhawk with 14 records.

Rob Husbands has been out observing Goshawks for the past couple of weekends. Many reading this will be well aware of Rob’s experience with this species, but even he is still learning new things about them through observation. Although the main period for displaying Goshawks is generally March through to early April, Goshawks can be seen high soaring in any month, so with this in mind Rob went to an unsurveyed patch of the Forest of Dean to see what activity, if any, was going on. Click here to read about Rob’s experiences.

A quick note to inform that the species pages have been further updated. Each species now has short sections covering a basic description of the bird, its habitat, diet, breeding and survival, as well as some local information on distribution and population. This information will be expanded on over time. Each species now has at least one video too – some picked for informativeness, others for the excellent photography which aides identification, and some purely because there wasn’t much available to choose from! Many thanks for the excellent response to the appeal for images for the galleries too. It’s much appreciated!

Only a month or so since creating the gallery, and it was already starting to become apparent that in time it was going to become something of a disorganised mess! Furthermore, it was suggested by some at the January meeting that it would be potentially useful, particularly for novices, to have more information on each species on the GRMG site. With this in mind, the original gallery format has been replaced with individual pages for each species. These pages are already populated with some basic statistics and descriptions, along with photographs. Over time, it is hoped that these pages will become of more use, containing relevant local information and data, along with identification tips. For the sake of completeness, we still need some photographs of certain species, and would like to call upon the photographers amongst you to kindly help us fill in the blanks. Ideally photographs should be of birds in Gloucestershire, but it’s not essential. Full credit will of course be given anywhere on this site that the photo is used. We’re currently lacking any photos at all for Merlin, Eagle Owl, Montagu’s Harrier, Raven, Honey Buzzard and Long-eared Owl, but also if you have any photos of the other species that you’d like to see on the site, please send them to Ben at [email protected].

We would like to express a huge thank you to everyone who attended our first meeting today. As promised, we will shortly be in contact with everyone who attended. In the meantime, this is just a brief message to say that the slides shown prior to the discussion are now available for download, giving better opportunity to study the maps and figures that were presented. Please see the documents page to download a copy.

Gloucestershire Raptor Monitoring Group would like to remind everyone that it is our inaugural meeting on January 17th at St. Peter’s RC High School (Stroud Road, Tuffley). This meeting will start at 10am and tea, coffee and biscuits will be provided.

The meeting will be held in Pavilion at St. Peter’s. This is located at the bottom of site so when you arrive be sure to drive down past reception (bearing right) and follow the road to the bottom where there is plenty of parking. The Pavilion is the grey building in front of the tennis courts near the car park. Once you are there you will need to go upstairs.

If you can no longer attend, please let us know.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Hot on the heels of the launch of the Gloucestershire Raptor Monitoring Group, we now have another new group dedicated to the monitoring of one special species – the much-loved Barn Owl. The Gloucestershire Barn Owl Monitoring Programme (GBOMP) comprises a number of the members of GRMG, along with Andy Lewis and Richard Harris. Today, the public face of GBOMP has been launched in the form of its new website, at www.glosbarnowls.co.uk. The group can also be found on Twitter (@glosbarnowls). The group is looking for volunteers and is keen to hear about your Barn Owl records.
NB. if you already submit Barn Owl records to GRMG, there is no need to duplicate them to GBOMP, though you are welcome to.

We are very grateful to Dave Pearce for providing us with two articles about the Peregrines of Christ Church, Cheltenham. The first gives a great insight in to the lives of the birds and their breeding patterns, from pre-laying activity to laying, hatching, feeding, first flights, and eventual dispersal of young. The second article details a day in the life of one month old Peregrine chicks. Please head to our documents page where you can download these and other documents.

Gloucestershire Raptor Monitoring Group would like to wish everyone a very happy new year. We have been busy preparing for our first meeting, which takes place at St Peter’s RC High School, Gloucester, on January 17th. Full details can be found here. Please remember to let us know if you have an interest in attending. After a brief overview of why the group was formed, and what we hope it might be able to achieve, the meeting will be very much about us finding out what people want from the group, and how they can contribute.

Please do continue to send us your observations. We’re extremely grateful to those who have already been submitting their records.

The GRMG site now has a new and permanent domain name – glosraptors.co.uk. Please update your bookmarks, and remember that you can subscribe to the site using the form on the right hand side of the page (beneath the tweets). Some new photographs have also been added to the gallery, including this stunning capture of an adult female Peregine attacking an inverted Common Buzzard, photographed by Jon Watson at Symonds Yat Rock. Finally, we now have a links page with various local and national birding, surveying and conservation groups, with more to come.

We will be holding an event on January 17th, 2015 at St. Peter’s RC High School, Gloucester (GL4 0DD).

This event is an initial get together for those interested in contributing to GRMG. All details for this event can be found here – please email us on [email protected] to let us know you wish to attend.