The State of the UK's Birds 2013 has been produced by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) – and the UK Government’s statutory nature conservation agencies: Natural England (NE); Natural Resources Wales (NRW); Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA); Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH); and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC).
The British Trust for Ornithology has published its Bird Atlas 2007-11 based on tens of thousands of systematic volunteer observations in the UK and Ireland. BTO runs a range of volunteer citizen science surveys.
Birdlife has produced State of the World's Birds 2013, giving snapshots and overviews of biodiversity status, pressures and responses. Links to further resources. Exuberant graphics.
State of the Birds 2013 has been published, an assessment covering the USA from government agencies and NGOs
A range of UK agencies and NGOs have produced the State of the UK's Birds 2012, summarising status and trends. Big emphasis on the role of volunteer recording and citizen science.
There is a loose UK network of organisations collecting and communicating data. A key focus is the UK Defra Non-Native Species Secretariat (NNSS)
Recording Invasive Species Counts (RISC) programme. In collaboration with the NERC CEH - Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (the Biological Records Centre) - it provides reporting software that gathers information - with links to the National Biodiversity Network. Species and corresponding organisations collaborating in RISC are: /more.....Animals:
Plants:
And outside the RISC programme, there are other mapping and recording schemes that capture invasive data:
These are the citizen science/mass observation projects. There are many more species listed, research project and eradication initiatives listed on the GB Non-Native Species Secretariat site.
Thanks to Stephen and John - look at the Cornell Ornithology Lab for a database of resources on citizen science, and a ten-year review of citizen science and environmental monitoring (paywall) - Conrad, C and Hilchey, K (2011) A review of citizen science and community-based environmental monitoring: issues and opportunities Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 176 273-291, DOI: 10.1007/s10661-010-1582-5
Article on an argument on the naming a species of antpitta (a bird). A complex mixture of NGO/science politics, precedence in naming, whether to collect or not, the nature of holotypes, recognition of benefactors and other issues. Feathers are flying over Colombian bird name flap Science 4 March 2011:Vol. 331 no. 6021 1123-1124 DOI: 10.1126/science.331.6021.1123
As an example of integration of research with public engagement, worth looking at the Cornell Ornithology citizen science site. This is citizen science in the traditional US sense - volunteer participation in recording and data gathering, like last weekend's RSPB Garden Birdwatch.
