The end of another year

Eccleston Mere 31/12/2009
Harris Hawk - Year 231 (a festive joke! even I don't tick Harris Hawk..................)

Well, the last daylight of 2009 is rapidly fading, and it looks as though the birding is finished for the year. Another drunken evening of disgraceful excess is upon us (and that's just in my house ), and later hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of fireworks will be shot into the air by the good folk of Britain, a country which is meant to be in recession. So now seems a good time to look back at they old year.

It was a roller coaster of a year for me, but from a birding point of view, it was my best for many a year. I finished with a UK year list of 231 species...... ok 230!, which included five UK lifers, Pallid Swift, Paddyfield Warbler, Laughing Gull, Royal Tern and Eastern Crowned Warbler. I was pleased to reach 230, because I didn't have a single holiday or even a long weekend in the UK, and I didn't go to Scotland, East Anglia, Cornwall, Scillies and I didn't go to the east coast apart from the one visit for the ECW. I reached 230 species by almost entirely local birding in North West England and occasionally North Wales.

The main places I went birding included Eccleston Mere (over 80 visits), Hilbre Island (31 visits), Martin Mere (28 visits), Leighton Moss (14), Marshside (13) and Inner Marsh Farm (13).

My 2009 Merseyside list finished on 171, and my 2009 Lancashire list (including Merseyside which it does in the Lancs Bird report) was 203.

Outside the UK, I had two long weekends to south west Spain and Portugal, and saw 115 species in Spain and 87 in Portugal. I got one Spanish lifer, Crested (red-knobbed) Coot.

In July I went to Sardinia, wrong time of year and too hot, but still ended up with an Italian list of 50 species, which included two European lifers, Barbary Partridge and the Sardinian version of Marmoras Warbler.

In October I went to New York, on a completely none birding holiday, but came back with 38 species, most of which were lifers for me.

In total, I saw 313 species in the World in 2009.

A very good birding year for me. Let's hope 2010 is as good. Happy New Year to you all.