Planning ahead for the breeding bird survey season 2025
Our dedicated in-house Ornithology team is preparing for the 2025 breeding bird survey season which commences on the 1st March as set out under the Wildlife Act. Breeding season surveys for wind farm sites must commence in April to comply with industry best practices (NatureScot, 2017).
Timely planning and commencement of surveys to the required specification is an essential cornerstone of any impact assessment for obtaining planning permission for a project.
Key considerations when scoping bird surveys include:
- Selection of most appropriate methodologies: adherence to relevant industry best practice standards to ensure robust datasets as the basis for impact assessments to accompany planning applications or adhere to conditions of planning.
- Timely planning: e.g. minimum of two years of data, is generally required as a basis for impact assessment of wind energy developments.
- Seasonality of surveys: surveys need to be timed to coincide with seasonal constraints to avoid costly delays to projects.
- Potential to contribute to constraints-based design to avoid and reduce impacts on sensitive sites such as SPAs.
What can our Ornithology team offer your project?
Our Ornithology team has a strong record in the provision of bird surveying services for its public and private-sector clients across a variety of sectors, with extensive experience in the delivery of services to the renewable energy industry, along with transport, residential, utilities, flood relief, conservations, tourism and aquaculture projects. We are accustomed to managing complex and large-scale bird survey programmes in various habitats, using multiple surveyors over single or multi-season durations. Our team of experienced bird surveyors comprised of both key in-house staff and an expert subcontractor panel means that we have resources available to deploy on large-scale surveys along with dedicated support staff tasked with managing, resourcing and coordinating our bird survey programme, and the resulting data and reporting outputs required by our clients.
Our team offers:
- Technical expertise, scientific knowledge and industry experience in the planning, programming and managing of large-scale, multi-season surveys throughout Ireland.
- Strong surveyor resources including both highly skilled and trained in-house Ornithologists and expert sub-contractor panel.
- Quality assurance through in-house management of large datasets and use of GIS for data collection, management and analysis to provide robust data capable of withstanding the rigour of the planning process.
- Experienced ornithological consultants delivering evidence-based impact assessments to the highest industry standards.
Our Ornithology team provides a customised scoping service to design the most appropriate survey programme to ensure that all survey requirements are met, any site-specific constraints are identified and the final project design addresses any issues relating to avifauna within the receiving environment to avoid impacts on birds and facilitate the successful delivery of the project.