EBwS is the natural home of bird recording in Essex and has been since 1949. Maintaining the bird records for the county and making them available to interested parties, such as local authorities, the scientific community, environmental consultants and the general public is therefore a key part of what we do. The records that we collect through this website and the records that we collate from other sources are made available in a number of different ways:
- Recent Sightings can be seen on our Bird Reports page. This list is compiled from records submitted directly to our website.
- We publish an annual Essex Bird Report (EBR) for the county. Copies of the EBR are sent to all EBwS members free of charge. It is compiled from the consolidated data received from a range of difference sources including this website, spreadsheets submitted from members directly to the County Recorder, and bird recording platforms such as BirdTrack and eBird. Copies of the EBR that are more than 3 years old are available for download in PDF format from the publications section of this website.
- We share our records annually with the Essex Field Club (EFC). The EFC holds all natural history records for Essex which are received from the county recorders for all of the various taxa, such as moths and butterflies, amphibians, invertebrates, etc. The EFC makes that data available to local authorities and environmental consultants primarily for when they are conducting environmental impact assessments and similar studies.
Anyone who wishes to obtain the data for a particular location and/or species should contact the EFC via their website and make a request through their Data Search Service.