So here we are with the fashionably late end of year review for 2022. On reflection it's been a pretty good year all round. As usual I've broken it down into patch, county and national birding.
Port Meadow Patch
As usual, I've done an in depth review of the patch year which you can see here. To give an executive summary, we ended the year on 137 strict BOU species + 1 extra (Red-breasted Goose). This compares well with the previous record breaking year which ended up on 136 + 4 extra. So depending on how strict you are, this could be considered as a record breaking year. In the end there were no outstanding "national level" rares. Rather it was a number of "good county birds" that made up the excitement. This included the following shortlist for the Port Meadow Bird of the Year award. The record counts in brackets are for the patch.
Siberian Chiffchaff (first record)
Little Tern (second record)
Arctic Tern (first record for several years)
Water Pipit (second record)
Rock Pipit (fourth record)
Yellow-browed Warbler (fourth record)
Hawfinch (second record)
In the end I gave the Bird of the Year Award to the Water Pipit, partly because it was a personal patch tick.
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| The Water Pipit (BotY) was poorly photographed so here's the more photogenic Siberian Chiffchaff, which came a close second in the awards |
County Birding
The county year was an interesting one. There were three county firsts in the end: a Pallas's Warbler in January at Abingdon sewage works, the amazing Common Nighthawk in Wantage in September and a single-observer no access Red-flanked Bluetail at an undisclosed site. If you include half a dozen different Yellow-browed Warblers across the county (including on Port Meadow) then it was a pretty decent year.
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| No prizes for guessing the county Bird of the Year Award! |
Apart from the Pallas's and the Nighthawk (which were both county ticks) there was one other county level trip to discuss, a trip in the autumn to Balscote Quarry NR up near Banbury in order to upgrade my heard-only Dartford Warbler county tick to a full blown tick. So with 2.5 county ticks it was a pretty decent year.
As usual I will wrap up the county birding section with the traditional Gnome Studios video review.
The Traditional Gnome Studios Review of 2022
National Birding
Nationally it was an unusually good year for me. I've gotten used to getting less than half a dozen national lifers a year now so to end up with 8 (albeit two being "heard only") was pretty good. In chronological order we have:
1. A trip to see the Eastbourne American Robin in February. This was quite a national Mega, with the last twitchable one having been back in 2010. With a side order of a Hume's Warbler and a Hooded Crow it made for a great day out in what is usually a very quiet month.
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| The American Robin performed well on the day I was there |
2 & 3. The first of two two tick days happened in May with a trip to Kent to see the Eleonora's Falcon with a bonus (albeit heard only) Sardinian Warbler. With a Late Spider Orchid plant tick as well it was a good day out.
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| The Eleonora's Falcon at Worth Marshes |
4 & 5. July provided the second two tick day with a trip up to the North East, ostensibly to take my daughter back to Durham but really to finally see the Bempton Black-browed Albatross along with the Turkestan (or Red-tailed) Shrike. After giving me a bit of a run-around in the end I got nice views of "Bempton Bertie" as he flew in towards the cliffs. The Shrike was very obliging as well.
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| The Black-browed Albatross |
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| The Turkestan Shrike |
6. A national first gull less than two hours from home was too good to miss so along with everyone else I went to pay homage to the Cape Gull at Grafham Water. And very obliging it was too!
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| The Cape Gull at Grafham Water |
7. This was the Common Nighthawk that I mentioned above in the Oxon section. Quite unbelievable!
8. Finally there was the Eastbourne Radde's Warbler. I managed to cock things up by going a day too late when there was a ferocious storm but somehow managed to salvage a hear-only tick from this.
So all in all it was a pretty good year nationally for me. This does leave the tricky matter of the national Bird of the Year award. It might be a bit controversial given the list of strong contenders but despite it being very much last year's bird for everyone else, I'm going to give it to the Albatross. There was just something about seeing it that trumps everything else. I know other people have said this in previous years - I'm just a bit late to the party!
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