The Late (Again!) End of Year Review

Whereas other bloggers are now already blogging about their new year expeditions I'm still collecting my thoughts about the previous year. I seem to have got into a habit of being late with my end of year reviews and this year is no exception. Still, better late than never, here is my review of what was a pretty decent year's birding. As usual I will divide it up into the usual patch, county, national and non-bird sections but all managed to perform well this year.

Patch Birding

Regular readers will know that much of my day to day birding efforts are taking up with my local Port Meadow patch. I have already done a comprehensive review of the year (see here) so this is just an executive summary. It was a record breaking year in terms of year listing with 136 strict BOU species + 2 release scheme birds (Crane and White Stork) and two feral species (Snow Goose and Red-breasted Goose). One of these days I'm going to sit down and write my blog piece about Gnome listing but for now I'll leave the total deconstructed as above. The highlights of the year were: a Black Redstart in March (a personal patch tick), a Pectoral Sandpiper in December and a Dotterel also in December (also a Patch tick). The Port Meadow Bird of the Year was the Dotterel.

The Dotterel, courtesy of the finder Ollie Padget

County Birding

It was a very good year for county birding as well. Some years, outside of my patch it can be very quiet with no additions to my county year list but this year I managed three ticks. My day job meant that my twitching was more constrained so I had the extra challenge of trying to do door to door twitches within the one hour that I have off during daylight hours. This added a certain frisson to the twitching!

First up was the Purple Sandpiper at Farmoor. I had been away down in Cornwall for the only other twitchable county bird since I started birding at the end of 2007 so when this was found one August evening at Farmoor I hurried down there to make amends. 

Farmoor Purple Sandpiper

In September, I had the chance of another county grip back when a pair of Roseate Terns were found early afternoon at Farmoor. Again, I'd been away for the last twitchable bird and I managed to twitch them and return to my desk all within one hour. Hectic stuff but great to get such close views of this lovely Tern species.

The two Roseate Terns

It wasn't until December that my third county tick turned up when a Little Auk was found down on the river at Farmoor. Once again it was a mad dash to see it and get back all within one hour but somehow I did it, adding what was the ultimate county Mega to my list.

The Little Auk

The only other county trip of note was a morning spent up at Wantage to see an elusive Wryneck. The main enjoyment was winkling out views of this shy species but in the end it showed well enough.

The Wantage Wryneck

There is little contest for the county Bird of the Year: it has to be the Little Auk just for sheer rarity value. Only two county listers had ever seen one before (apart from some rescue birds) so it was a tick for just about everyone.

National Birding

My day job has rather been affecting my national birding as well. As I am confined to weekends, I either have to take the day off or do a weekend twitch. This has resulted in at least two missed life ticks this year but I still managed six additions to my coveted personal life list.

April was a productive month with three lifers no less! To start with there was a trip down to Cornwall that got me the Northern Mockingbird and the Newlyn American Herring Gull. Both birds fortunately hung around throughout the lockdown and were obliging enough for me to turn up and tick them fairly easily.

The Northern Mockingbird

The Newlyn American Herring Gull

The following weekend it was off to Sussex for the White-throated Sparrow at Barcombe. This involved waiting reasonable lengths of time before getting comparatively brief views but it was a lovely bird that certainly warranted putting in the time and effort for.

Barcombe White-throated Sparrow

Nationally, it was rather quiet then until June when we had a trip en famille down to Cornwall. Cornwall itself was rather uninteresting with just an adult Rose-coloured Starling worthy of note but on the way back we stopped off for the Ham Wall River Warbler which, after a tense wait, I managed to see just before the family needed to be picked up from Glastonbury.

The River Warbler

It wasn't until September that I had my next tick with the long-staying White-tailed Lapwing up at Blacktoft Sands. This was a lovely little reserve with a great supporting cast and the star turn was obliging enough.

The White-tailed Lapwing

I thought that that was going to be it but then in the last few days of the year I managed to snaffle the elusive Belted Kingfisher up in Lancashire. The views were distant but prolonged and, given all the tales of multiple dips on the internet, I was very happy to have this Mega in the bag.

The Belted Kingfisher

Other trips of note included a Durham run in January on which I saw the Northern Eider at Redcar. This is a subspecies tick for me and will therefore appear somewhere on the convoluted Gnome listing hierarchy.

The Redcar Northern Eider

The national Bird of the Year award is a really tricky one as they were all much appreciated in their own way. The Mockingbird and the Kingfisher are both real Megas in their own right; the American Herring Gull was something that I had long wanted to catch up with and I really enjoyed the Sparrow, Lapwing and River Warbler twitches. So this year I am going to be controversial and share the award equally amongst all of them.

Non-birding

There were only a couple of non-birding trips this year in the form of jaunts down to the New Forest for a couple of Orchid ticks that I still needed, namely Fragrant Heath Orchid and the tiny Bog Orchid. I enjoyed having something to do in the height of summer and with a side helping of some Honey Buzzard views it was a great couple of trips.

Bog Orchid

Summary

So there you have it: despite the restrictions of a day job and the on-going pandemic I managed to see some decent birds and to keep my various county and national lists jogging along. I really appreciate having mutliple different outlets for my birding in the form of patch, county and national birding - each offers me great enjoyment in their own way. Let's hope that 2022 is just as good.