In the early days of Rye Meadows we were fortunate to have Peter Firth, a local well-respected ornithologist undertake bird surveys for us. Peter was a well known walker on Ashtead Common following his hobby of bird-watching. 

Daphne Burnett asked him if he would do a monthly bird survey on Rye Meadows for us and Peter agreed. He would do his early morning walk and record the varities of birds he had seen, noting their numbers and positions. He would then write up his diary and send us the details to be published on the web site.

Sadly Peter fell ill and was unable to continue his work, and he passed away in 2022. Before his passing though, Peter wrote a small book entitled "The birds of Ashtead Rye Meadows". This 20 page book contains colour photographs and a short narrative of each species he encountered with details of presence, habitat, breeding season, diet and nest. This book is available through our shop page at £2.50.

His work though was continued by Roy Guy, another local keen bird-watcher, and Roy also carried out a monthly Meadows walk recording the bird numbers he had seen. Roy too has now given up his Meadows walks and we are fortunate to now have Jeremie Pink looking after our bird survey work. He is a member of the Ashtead U3A Birdwatching group and hopes to bring his knowledge, and also learn new things with us. Many thanks to Roy for his sterling work!

Like Roy, Jeremie will walk the fields once a month observing (by sight, sound or behaviour) and record all the birds identified. They are recorded using the BTO app “Bird Track” which incorporates our data into national records. Then these are summarised and recorded on the Rye Meadows website.