Tracking the Impact
If you are passionate about wildlife and protecting it; would like to carry out bird, butterfly or plant surveys in new and unexplored areas of the Chilterns; or want to improve your ID and survey skills then ‘Tracking the Impact’ could be for you!
Learn new skills, benefit from a wide range of free online and in-person training and improve your knowledge of local birds, plants and butterflies, before taking on your own 1km square to monitor and record during the year.
Your work will be of vital importance, not only to help us understand the state of nature at a local level, but also to feed into a wide range of national initiatives including: Breeding Bird Survey, Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey and National Plant Monitoring Scheme.
Take part in 2023
We are thrilled to now be recruiting citizen scientists to start surveying from April 2023, with even more ‘squares’ available this year due to our partnership with the River Chess Smarter Water Catchment project.
If your interest is in birds, butterflies and/or plants we are offering exciting opportunities to:
- take on new survey squares and get involved in national recording schemes
- receive training in species ID and survey techniques
- offer training and support to new volunteer surveyors
We are looking for volunteers to carry out surveys during the spring and summer and would love to hear from you if you:
- are an experienced surveyor and are keen to take on a new patch
- have some species ID experience but would like some training to help you develop
- are new to surveying and want some training on specific survey methods
If you’re interested, please complete our registration form and we will be in touch to discuss potential training needs:
Register your interestBy getting involved in the project you will both be making a big difference to your local wildlife in the Chilterns and be contributing to national recording schemes. We will also be offering the chance to meet with other surveyors and to get feedback on the project at regular workshops and events.
In 2020, due to COVID-19, we ran a number of informative online training sessions, which you can now view on our Youtube channel. These should give you a sense of the wide range of experts and enthusiasts we have feeding into our group of almost 100 volunteers, and the great knowledge sharing opportunities offered by our regular meet-ups and WhatsApp group.
View the training slides and presentations
Results so far
We have seen some incredible results so far – in the first two years of the project our team of volunteers has helped reach 60% coverage of our project area!
About the Project
The Chilterns Conservation Board has teamed up with Butterfly Conservation, British Trust for Ornithology, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, BMERC, BBOWT and Plantlife to deliver this exciting landscape-scale wildlife surveying programme across the Central Chilterns area. The project will last initially for 4 years and started in spring 2020.
New surveying opportunities are on offer not only for experienced surveyors but also the next generation through a species ID and survey training package.
Working across 50 1km survey squares (plus 25 in the Chess catchment from 2023), the project dovetails with existing national recording schemes (Breeding Bird Survey, Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey and National Plant Monitoring Scheme) to bolster coverage in a ground-breaking new partnership.
The project offers opportunities to explore new sites in the area and the data will be used to track trends across the landscape and inform practical woodland, grassland and farmland habitat management projects.
Project area
Tracking the Impact is part of the Chalk, Cherries and Chairs Landscape Partnership Scheme which is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund & and HS2 Community & Engagement Fund, and managed by the Chilterns Conservation Board. New for 2023, we have teamed up with the River Chess Smarter Water Catchment project, led in partnership by the Chilterns Chalks Streams Project and Chiltern Society, to extend Tracking the Impact surveys into the Chess catchment.
For more information please contact
Read more on our blog
Tracking the Impact: In Celebration of Volunteers
Tracking the Impact - an online celebration of the role of the volunteers involved in this Citizen Science and conservation project.
Volunteer survey results in fantastic news for birds and farmers in the Central Chilterns
Ready for some good news? Nick has recapped all of the amazing work done by our volunteers as part of...
Sign up to our newsletter
Check out our Youtube channel
