The Birds Directive (Directive 2009/147/EC) came into force in Ireland in 1981. Article 12 of this directive requires Member States to report on the implementation of national provisions taken under this Directive including specific reporting on status and trends of bird species. The first new format Article 12 report was submitted by member states in 2014 covering the four year period 2008 – 2012 inclusive. The Eionet website provides access to the information contained in all the national reports - see http://bd.eionet.europa.eu/article12/.

The reports include a separate report for each individual bird species. If the particular report is describing a breeding population then a breeding distribution and range map forms part the report. Detailed distribution data was primarily derived from the 2007-11 Bird Atlas (via BirdWatch Ireland) but also from species specific projects conducted by NPWS and others. Final 10km and 50km grid mapping was generated from this information by NPWS and by Birdwatch Ireland.

The resources referenced in this metadata relate to these distribution and range mapping for breeding populations in Irish National Grid.

The individual species reports on the Eionet website provide important information on the sources and selection of data to derive the final distributions and ranges.

All enquires on detailed distributions should first be directed to BirdWatch Ireland. NPWS is in a position to release the 10km (and 50km where appropriate) derived grid distribution data.

Details of the Article 12 the related reporting requirements, including reporting format guidance and reference portal are available at http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/knowledge/rep_birds/index_en.htm.

The following Data Resources are included in this download, and detailed metadata is available for each resource in the download:

• AR1212_CurrentDistributionAllSpecies.shp -

Multipart polygon shapefile showing the national distribution of the all reported breeding bird species. The national grid distributions for the 135 individual species are largely based on the national distributions for these species generated by Birdwatch Ireland for the BirdAtlas2007 to 2011.

• AR1212_CurrentRangeAllSpecies.shp

Multipart polygon shapefile showing the national range of the all 135 reported breeding bird species.

Range "...describes roughly the spatial limits within which the habitat or species occurs.

The First Atlas of Wintering Birds in Britain and Ireland: 1981/82-1983/84.. Published by National Biodiversity Data Centre. Available under the license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY-4.0).A dataset of the distribution and abundance of the wintering birds in Britain & Ireland from 1981 to 1984, generated using a list of the species observed and counts of individuals seen within each 10km square over the survey period.

Geographic Coverage: This datasets contains data only for the island of Ireland, but is part of the larger Britain and Ireland master dataset held by the British Trust for Ornithology at Thetford, U.K. All 10-km squares within the island of Ireland with more than a very small amount of land were visited.

Temporal Coverage: Records for 10-km squares were collated over the three winters 1981/82, 1982/83 and 1983/84. The survey ran from the period 14, 13 and 12 November in each of the three winters respectively until the last day of February.

Species Groups recorded: bird

Dataset Status: The dataset available through Biodiversity Maps is for the island of Ireland but is only a subset of the larger British and Irish dataset held by the BTO. It was used to produce the first British Trust for Ornithology /Irish Wildbird Conservancy (now BirdWatch Ireland) winter bird atlas published as Lack, P. (1986) The Atlas of Wintering Birds in Britain and Ireland. T. & A.D. Poyser, Calton.

Additional Information: Full details of the methods used in the field, how fieldwork was organised and the interpretation of the maps is provided in the published atlas Lack, P. (1986) The Atlas of Wintering Birds in Britain and Ireland. T. & A.D. Poyser, Calton, or from the British Trust for Ornithology website at www.bto.org/birdatlas/previous/old_methods.htm. Specific queries as they relate to the Republic of Ireland should be made to BirdWatch Ireland at info@birdwatchireland.ie...

A survey of bird distribution, in summer and winter, over the four year period between 2007 and 2011.

Geographic Coverage: The survey covered both Britain and Ireland, but only the Republic of Ireland subset of data are displayed.

Temporal Coverage: Four winters and four summers from November 2007 to July 2011.

Species Groups recorded: bird, birds

Dataset Status: Complete, except for records of some of Ireland's rarest birds.Sighting of red-necked phalarope, white-tailed eagle, golden eagle, black-tailed godwit, marsh harrier and little ringed plover during the breeding season, and golden eagle in winter, are not mapped in order to safeguard these species from possible disturbance.

Additional Information: Further information some of the key findings of the survey are presented on the BirdWatch Ireland website http://www.birdwatchireland.ie/OurWork/ResearchSurveys/Atlas/tabid/487/Default.aspx

A dataset of the distribution of the breeding birds of Britain & Ireland from 1968 to 1972, generated using a list of the species observed within each 10km square over the survey period.

This data package describes the modelled relative (not absolute) abundance of Carrion Crow (Corvus corone), Magpie (Pica pica), Buzzard (Buteo buteo) and Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) in Britain and Ireland.

This was used to produce Bird Atlas 2007-2011 maps of relative abundance at a tetrad (2x2km) resolution.

Acknowledgement: These data originate from the Bird Atlas 2007–11 project which was run by the BTO in partnership with BirdWatch Ireland and the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club. We are grateful to the thousands of volunteers who undertook and organised the fieldwork for the atlas.

Please refer to the metadata for a more detailed description, and for information on dataset usage.

v1.2 update: added Buzzard (Buteo buteo) and Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus). Changed file structure, creating one file per season (B = Breeding, W = Winter)

Introdution
This dataset contains six sets of biodiversity atlas data that have been used as a test of occupancy downscaling methods. They are derived from two taxonomic groups, vascular plants and birds and are either regional or national atlases. The original atlas have already been published and the references are below. Should these data be used these citations should be used.

File contents
Each zip file contains a set of text files, one for each taxa. Each text file has three tab seperated columns, longitude, latitude and presence. The presence column indicates whether the grid cell was occupied (1) or unoccupied (0). The longitude and latitude columns are the grid references of each grid cell surveyed. For Ireland the Irish grid system is used (EPSG:29903); for the UK the Ordnance Survey Grid (EPSG:27700) and for Belgian the Lambert 72 system (EPSG:31370). The grid cell area for all plant datasets is 4 km². Whereas the grid areas for the Flemish birds is 25 km² and for the Irish breeding birds is 100 km².

References

1. Evans, P., Evans, I. & Rothero, G. (2002) Flora of Assynt: fowering plants and ferns. P.A. Evans and I.M. Evans. ISBN 0954181301.
2. Forbes, R.S. & Northridge, R.H. (2012) The Flora of County Fermanagh. National Museums Northern Ireland. ISBN 1905989288
3. Halliday, G. (1997) A Flora of Cumbria. Centre for North-West Regional Studies, University of Lancaster. ISBN 1862200203.
4. National Biodiversity Data Centre (2011) The Second Atlas of Breeding Birds in Britain and Ireland: 1988-1991. URL https://doi.org/10.15468/pkhsnb
5. Shropshire Ecological Data Network (2017) Shropshire Ecological Data Network database. Occurrence Dataset. URL https://doi.org/10.15468/5v5pvk
6. Lockton, A.J. & Whild, S.J. (2015) The Flora and Vegetation of Shropshire. Shropshire Botanical Society. ISBN 0953093727.
7. Vermeersch, G., Anselin, A., Devos, K., Herremans, M., Stevens, J., Gabriëls, J., Van Der Krieken, B., Brosens, D. & Desmet, P. (2014) Broedvogels - Atlas of the breeding birds in Flanders 2000-2002. v1.5. URL http://doi.org/10.15468/sccg5a

Records collected by Natalie Harmsworth. The records are a combination of casual and systematic records collected from a variety of species groups within the Lothians, Borders and Upper Forth areas. There is a particalar emphasis on plants and birds and a geographical bias in recording towards Midlothian and Edinburgh areas. Many of the bird records were made with Mike Beard. A mixture of casual records, monad recording for the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) Atlas 2020 and surveys of proposed Local Biodiversity Sites/ Local Nature Conservation Sites for The Wildlife Information Centre (TWIC).