The Late 2024 End of Year Review

Somehow I've managed to make my 2024 end of year review even later than usual - I don't quite know how that happened. Anyway, better late than never! As usual, my birding year is divided into patch, county and national birding so without further ado let's kick things off.

Patch Birding

One of the reasons for delaying this review is that I have to do the Port Meadow patch annual review first and this was only published a few days ago. You can read the full Port Meadow Annual Review here so this will just be an executive summary.

The two previous years had been record breaking in terms of the patch year list so it was back to more usual numbers this year with a total of 141. It was a strange year in terms of the weather with a very wet spring and a blocking weather pattern over Spain keeping the migrants away for a long time. All this resulted in unusually low spring migrant numbers and meant that we missed some key waders that we might normally expect to get. Still the last few months of the year were very good with lots of fly-over patch gold picked up by a particularly keen patch worker who single-handedly brought the year list total up to a respectable total. 

The short list for the Patch Bird of the Year was as follows:
Grey-headed Wagtail (subspecies)
Spoonbill
Baltic Gull (subspecies)
Yellowhammer
Hawfinch
Kittiwake
Pink-footed Goose
Merlin
Yellow-browed Warbler
Siberian Chiffchaff (subspecies)

The award went to the Baltic Gull on the grounds that it was the rarest on the list.

The 2w Baltic Gull courtesy of Thomas Miller

On a personal level, this was the first year in quite a while when I didn't get a single addition to my personal patch list. Of course it's getting increasingly hard to add to the list given how long I've been birding the patch but it was a bit disappointing not to get anything in that respect for a whole year's patch birding.

 

County Birding

Continuing on with the "somewhat disappointing" theme, county birding this year was a very quiet affair. Indeed it was the lowest county year list total this centuary with only 201 different species seen across the county and personally there were no county life list additions this year. That's not to say that I didn't do any county birding away from the patch. Towards the end of the year there were some nice local scarcities that I went to visit including the two long staying Velvet Scoter pair up in Banbury and the one-day Snow Bunting at Farmoor - see the write-up here.

Above the Farmoor Snow Bunting & below the two Velvet Scoter at Grimsbury Reservoir, Banbury

I also went to see the long-staying Black Redstart at Christ Church College, Oxford along with a Purple Sandpiper at Farmoor - write-up here.

The Farmoor Purple Sandpiper

There is of course the customary Gnome Studio's Oxon Birding Review video with it's usual, inappropriate music. These days what with copyright restrictions it's getting hard to find suitable music that won't have your video banned so I've resorted to the same music as I used a couple of years ago which is free to use.

 

International Birding

I'm going to sneak in an additional category here. I'm not known for birding internationally but in April I went to Tenerife on the back of my eldest daughter's work trip and managed to catch up with all the endemics that I wanted to see. I must say that I really enjoyed this trip - it was just the right combination of a family based holiday with some great birding.

The iconic Tenerife Blue Chaffinch

 

Not Birds

I didn't do so much of the non-birding stuff this year but I enjoyed a trip down to Kent finally to put Dainty Damselfly on my list. This now completes my UK Damselfly list, at least until we get another colonist species.

Male Dainty Damselfly

I also went up to Scotland in the summer finally to add Creeping Lady's Tresses to my orchid list.

Creeping Lady's Tresses in the Loch Garten Forest

National Birding

This is probably the category that I enjoy the most though my strict criteria for twitching (it must be reliable with a high chance of connecting and not too far away) means that I don't go on many trips these days. Still I managed six UK lifers this year (including Steppe Grey Shrike which is currently officially a subsspecies) which is about average for me these days.

Things kicked off unexpectedly early in the year with the discovery of a Northern Waterthrush down in Essex. Initially it was too unreliable for me to consider it but once it's habits had been pinned down it was easy enough provided one was on site for first light.

A blurry shot of the Northern Waterthrush taken in the half light of dawn

My next out of county sortie was totally left field. Who would have thought that an Alpine Accentor would turn up in a quarry in Buckinghamshire in May? It was a drop everything and go twitch with a challenging descent of a steep hill thrown in but totally worth it!

The Pitstone Alpine Accentor

My next national sortie wasn't until August when, en route to getting my daughter back from Aberdeen (via the Cairngorms) I stopped off for the Greater Sand Plover at Newbiggin in Northumberland. It was a great bird in a lovely setting. It was just a shame that I didn't manage to conenct with the Stejneger's Scoter on the same trip. Missing that still smarts as I write this.

The Newbiggin Greater Sand Plover

As part of taking my son off to Uni at York, I made a sortie by train up to Dunbar to connect with the Steppe Grey Shrike. A great bird in a very picturesque setting. With a Pectoral Sandpiper at RSPB Blacktoft Sands on the way back home, it was a good trip!

The Dunbar Steppe Grey Shrike

There was some classic east coast birding up in Yorkshire in October with Spurn and Flamborough both turning up some great birds. I missed the star attraction in the form of the Pale-legged Leaf Warbler but managed to catch up with Arctic Warbler finally as well as a nice supporting cast of Red-breasted Flycatcher, Daurian Shrike and Grey Phalarope. I did also manage to dip Icterine Warbler by five minutes which was annoying.

A blurry grab of the Arctic Warbler

My final trip of the year was on Boxing Day when an unexpected Yellow Warbler turned up in Kent quite close to where I was spending Christmas in Surrey. It was a no-brainer to go for it and fortunately I went on a day when it showed constantly. After the day I visited it became much less reliable and harder to see.

The Yellow Warbler courtesy of Thomas Miller

In terms of the much coveted Gnome National Bird of the Year I think it has to go to the Yellow Warbler. A bright yellow American Warbler on a gloomy winter's day - what's not to like?

So that was my review of the year. This coming year I expect will be more of the same. It's probably officially a bit too late to wish my readers a Happy, Bird-filled New Year but I'll do it anyway.