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| Long-eared owl, England |
The year started slowly with floods and a cold snap. Things settled down to a dull, wet grey before Spring turned up early at the end of February and led to the driest Spring in ages, which in turn led to an early Summer that can be best summed up as muggy before another burst of heatwaves and the onset of Autumn by mid-August. Whatever you put on to go out in during Autumn was dead wrong at least twice the rest of the day. The Atlantic storm season started early, too, and was punctuated by long spells of grey murk and occasional sunshine. The onset of Winter brought more heavy rain then a lot of surprisingly mild and sunny days. In short the year was near drought book-ended by floods and none of the weather made much sense.
It goes without saying the train services were crap.
Overall I think the birdwatching year would best be described as steady. I missed quite a few Winter regulars at the beginning of the year but got some other surprisingly early ticks, it's the first time I've seen spoonbills or spotted redshanks in January. What I lost in hardly seeing any fieldfares I gained with multiple sightings of red-necked grebes and ring-necked ducks.
Spring passage was a bit hit-and-miss and having sussed out the past couple of years where to find singing ring ousels and wood warblers I made a bosh of connecting with either this year. Which just shows what happens when you get cocky.
On the Autumn passage I couldn't connect with the Leach's petrels in the Mersey Estuary and missed a juvenile Sabine's gull at Wallasey while I was at it. October felt a bit undercooked but taking September and October together the stats were a bit better than the same two months last year. Perhaps I'd peaked early, like the Autumn. I didn't beat myself up too much for not being able to find a firecrest on Leasowe Common, I've only ever once seen one on purpose.
And a very mild Winter made it difficult to catch up with the birds I missed at the beginning of the year.
I struggled to connect with little gulls and cuckoos and didn't do so well with flycatchers either. But I had a good year for bitterns, black terns and owls, September was a very good month for kingfishers, making up for an otherwise lean year, and December was full of red kites.
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| Kestrel, Crossens Inner Marsh |
I managed to keep the life list ticking over:
- It took two goes to get the shore lark at Oglet. It was hard going and the view fleeting but I found it in the end.
- The woodchat shrike at Daresbury was very nice indeed and it was good to get a long-standing prediction ticked off.
- I went to look for the Montagu's harrier at Marshside thinking that if I was looking for that I'd see a hen harrier instead and I needed to get one added to the year list. In the event I got both.
- The white-winged black tern, also at Marshside, was nice to see even though it was a fidget.
What did I dip?
- A golden oriole at Woolston Eyes. It's a dip on a technicality, the report of the bird prompted me to go and visit but I wasn't expecting to see or hear it. Honestly.
There are a few species I'm seriously worried about. Corn buntings and tree sparrows seem to be abandoning places I used to count on for them, particularly the Burscough area. Starling numbers are dramatically down, despite the flocks kicking about in a few favoured areas. I'm not recording as many dippers or little ringed plovers as I used to but that's definitely down to physical changes to the habitat in a few places where they used to be regulars, I just hope they've found suitable alternative quarters.
It was a really peculiar year for song thrushes. I spent the first half of the year falling over them then came the usual August hiatus when all the thrushes keep a really low profile but this Autumn the song thrushes didn't come back.
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| Robin, Leighton Moss |
Gadding about
I've put myself about a bit while I've been at it. I've given Greater Manchester a good going-over and explored a few new places across Lancashire, Cumbria and bits of Yorkshire. On the other hand, I've neglected Cheshire South of the Mersey and a lot of Yorkshire sites on my to-do list didn't get a visit. There's only so many days in a year and I'm losing my enthusiasm for battling with unreliable train services. Now the poor old cat has passed over the veil I won't be worrying about getting a sitter for her and I'll be having a few forays further afield next year.
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| Snipe, Leighton Moss |
The stats
In the end the year list came to 216, my second-best tally.
The life list is 391, the British list 311 and the Greater Manchester list 197.
Totals of species recorded this year by BTO recording area:
- Anglesey 42
- Carmarthenshire 17
- Cheshire and Wirral 120
- Cumbria 90
- Denbighshire 34
- Derbyshire 59
- Flintshire 31
- Greater Manchester 130
- Lancashire and North Merseyside 168
- Nottinghamshire 11
- Staffordshire 24
- Yorkshire 100
Next year
For next year I'll stick to the 200 target for the year and 100 per month. I'd quite like to get the life list up to 400 and the Greater Manchester list to 200, I think the latter is the more probably doable in the next couple of years. Perhaps I should have an another go at finding out how to get access to the Audenshaw Reservoirs.
Predictions for next year should probably include nightjar, little auk and great reed warbler because they've been on my radar for years. Let's stick bluethroat, Hume's leaf warbler, white-winged scoter and pallid harrier in the frame, too, just for fun and frolic.
And now on with the traditionally unrepresentative selection of the year's photos…
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| Tufted ducks, St Helens |
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| Greylags, Southport |
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| Snow bunting, Southport |
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| Sanderling, Crosby Beach |
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| Buzzard, Birchwood |
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| Heron, Broad Ees Dole |
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| Dunnock, Hadfield |
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| Blue tit, Marbury Country Park |
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| Black-tailed godwits, Martin Mere |
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| Nuthatch, Pennington Flash |
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| Bullfinch, Pennington Flash |
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| Shelducks, Meols |
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| Long-tailed tit, Stretford |
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| Short-eared owl, Chat Moss |
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| Sedge warbler, Marshside |
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| Black-headed gull and heron, Martin Mere |
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| Gannet, Bempton |
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| Juvenile blackcaps, Flixton |
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| Black-necked grebe, Moses Gate Country Park |
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| Starlings and buzzard, Great Woolden Moss |
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| Spoonbills, St Aidens |
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| Turnstone and redshank, West Kirby |
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| Stonechat, Marshside |
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| Wigeon, Marshside |
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| Sparrowhawk, Pilling Lane |
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| Mandarin ducks, Etherow Country Park |
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Whooper swan and pochards, Martin Mere
(The pochards have just dived underwater.) |
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| Teal, Leighton Moss |
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| Chaffinch, Leighton Moss |
