Concentrations of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) in UK sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) livers. Data from the Predatory Bird Monitoring Scheme (PBMS)

Dead sparrowhawks from throughout Britain were collected by volunteers and submitted to the Predatory Bird Monitoring Scheme. Provenance, collection date, age, sex, body weight and body condition (assessed visually using a six point scoring system) were recorded and a necropsy was performed during which a putative cause of death was determined. Various body tissues were collected from each carcass, weighed and archived at -20°C. Whole liver and body weights were not obtained for all birds usually because carcasses had been partly damaged through trauma or scavenging, or organs were provided by taxidermists who had not recorded the body weight of the bird.

Archived livers from birds that had died between 1998 and 2009 from central England, directly east and within 250 km of the Welsh border, were selected. Sample selection was restricted to minimise potential confounding temporal and spatial variation. Selection of birds was further stratified such that individuals were representative of one of eight groups characterised by sex (male/female), age (adult/juvenile) and body condition (starved/non-starved birds). Juveniles were defined as birds that hatched in the current or previous calendar year while starved birds were those which, at post-mortem inspection, had a complete lack of fat deposits or at most trace amounts of fat typically around the heart but nowhere else. The numbers of birds in each of the eight groups varied between five and 11 and the total number of birds analysed was 59.

This dataset is included in the following collections

The Predatory Bird Monitoring Scheme (PBMS)