First quarter review

Ring-necked duck, St Helens

It's been an odd start to the year, more a prolonged wet Autumn rather than a Winter and a sort of absentminded stumbling into Spring. That's been reflected in the birdwatching, particularly the weather and my increasingly grumpy reaction to it.

I had a look back to previous posts to remind myself how I present these reviews and much to my astonishment I find the pattern of my birdwatching in 2024 is pretty much the same as in 2022, sticking mostly to the Northwest with a trip out to Scarborough, nibbling round Cumbria and mid Cheshire and neglecting the Fylde. There are differences in the detail: the Warrington area's had a good going over and I've visited new places round St Helens and Heysham, and I still haven't got round to Frodsham and Northwich. Still, it's a good antidote to that nagging feeling I'm not getting to All The Places, the list of which seems to grow exponentially as I notice new places in passing or  go chasing round for the year list.

That year list is on 151, which is pretty good doing. It's largely been by slow accretion and luck rather than judgement. The notable absentees from the list at the moment are snow bunting and long-tailed duck, both of which I dipped; any flavour of white-fronted goose; tree sparrow, peregrine and ringed plover, which I haven't seen in their usual haunts; and wheatear but they're only just arriving. Against that, any year starting with cattle egret, black-throated diver and red-breasted goose and going on to add a red-necked grebe in full breeding plumage, multiple ring-necked ducks and lesser scaups, plus, an embarrassment of short-eared owls is going to be an interesting one.

Mandarin ducks, Etherow Country Park 

I've not added to the life list or British list yet but looking back over my records additions in the first quarter are the exception rather than the rule.

First-quarter totals by recording area:

• Cheshire and Wirral 79
• Cumbria 45
• Derbyshire 36
• Greater Manchester 95
• Lancashire and North Merseyside 114
• Yorkshire 53

Now let's brace ourselves for the Spring passage.