How local is your local patch?

[RockyRacoon]

How close to you to your local patch, I only have about a 30 second walk! How big is it, is it a few acres, or few square miles? I don't know what other people local patches are like!

[salty]

hmm... depends on what i want to see. for most species i need to travel about 5mile to derwent valley. for sea species its about 6mile to the coast or if i fancy the local river (tyne) thats just 1mile away. not bad really, as i can do a round trip and see more species in a day than most people in a week!

[Stephen Dunstan]

Mine is one minute's walk from where I work, 15 minutes in the car from where I live. Size - it is the Irish Sea so it's quite big...

Stephen.

[pauco]

Local woodland, 10 mins walk. Covers 6 miles.

To do any marshland birding its a 30 min drive to the coast road near southport, so not bad.

[Darren Oakley-Martin]

Local woodland, 10 mins walk. Covers 6 miles.

To do any marshland birding its a 30 min drive to the coast road near southport, so not bad.
6 miles in 10 minutes!!! Blinkin' 'ell!

BERT!! What you taking and can I have some?;)

[pauco]

6 miles in 10 minutes!!! Blinkin' 'ell!

BERT!! What you taking and can I have some?;)
you sure can when i find it, :bounce: have yet to do the full tour! and in 10min :eek!:

[Darren Oakley-Martin]

Remember Jake, Local patches are for local people.;)

My local patch is a good 40 minute walk away, then a 4 mile trek around a featureless boating lake and a couple of old claypits interspersed with scrub and open woodland. There's also a reedbed the size of a pool table, (which has hosted Cetti's Warbler plus both tristis and abietinus Chiffchaff- a probable of the latter this morning).

If I've learned anything, make sure you have a good pair of walking boots and be patient!

The whole thing takes about 4 hours, but I am slow!

Happy birding!

[Jane Turner]

Mine is 7 to ten minutes walk away and takes 20 mins to walk round once and I've seen 240 species there.... how lucky am !

[salty]

Mine is 7 to ten minutes walk away and takes 20 mins to walk round once and I've seen 240 species there.... how lucky am !

wow! - impressive. you sure it aint a rspb reserve? if not it should be. ;)

[Darren Oakley-Martin]

Mine is 7 to ten minutes walk away and takes 20 mins to walk round once and I've seen 240 species there.... how lucky am !
Take pity on those of us who have to rough it Jane!;)

Yours, not jealous in the slightest,

Daz

[very boring banned member]

My local patch is a 200 kilometer drive away (because I have recently moved). It covers some ten square kilometres.

[Darren Oakley-Martin]

My local patch is a 200 kilometer drive away (because I have recently moved). It covers some ten square kilometres.
But I guess that in your time-travel capsule, you can get there in, oooooh, 0.1 nano-seconds?;)

[Andrew]

Mine is the local canal. I hop on the number 1 bus and ride out to Halberton from Tiverton about four miles away then do a six/seven mile walk back home on a twisty canal. Love it to bits!

Where's me saddo certificate!?

[James Blake]

Mine is five minutes' walk from the house and the walk round it is only a mile or two. There's a flooded chalk pit, a bushy railway embankment and a bit of rough grassland.

What I like about it is how trivial records here (appearance of a gadwall and a pochard among the usual tufties) are part of impressive national events (major wave of duck migration).

James

[Adey Baker]

Five minute's walk - if I could go up the garden of the house opposite and then down the next garden it would be two minutes!

Cross over a railway footbridge and... well the bridge looks over the overgrown railway banks so I'm already started by then. Straight after the bridge is a timber yard in a former farmyard but they also have stabling for horses - so Swallows around here and Wagtails, including the odd Grey around the manure heap.

The footpath/farm track goes down towards the local common and woodland area but being between the railway and the horse-fields there's often plenty to see including Redpolls and Siskins sometimes, on birch trees, Thrushes, Green Woodpecker, Goldfinches (on Thistles) in the fields plus all the usual hedgerow species.

So there's plenty very locally without ever reaching the woods or common! - see this link to the common area: http://www.lros.org.uk/burbage.htm

[hornet]

Mine's sort of all around the house really. I live in a semi-rural village, quite close to town (Leamington Spa). To the south it's mixed farmland, mainly arable but some livestock - home to Yellowhammer, Linnet, Buzzard, Lapwing and Fieldfare etc - and one day (I hope) my first Corn Bunting!

To the north it's the Leam river valley and local nature reserve, mixed woodland, open grassland, a canal and more.

Either side takes me a good couple of hours or more to trek around, wouldn't fancy doing the whole lot in one day.

It looks a great patch, but despite having been here a year now I've not put nearly enough hours in to get the best out of it. Too much time heading off to established reserves and birding hotspots (not that you'd know it from my life / year lists).

My resolution for 2005 is to work my patch thoroughly for the full 12 months. Who knows what it may hold?

[Merop]

We have good terrain more of a climb than a walk, with some interesting species the resident pair of Peregrines in the valley to the game birds in the moorland along the Southern Upland way.

Local loch about 500m has a few water birds and small songbirds; there are a lot of Buzzards in our area.

[Jos Stratford]

My local patch is a 200 kilometer drive away (because I have recently moved). It covers some ten square kilometres.

Seems us Baltic types have got it rough - all you back in Blighty talk of your 5 or 10 minute walks, my regular local patch is 40 km away, but still manage to visit almost every other day. New 'local patch' is 75 km away but it really is MY local patch - 'cos just become owner of 35 hectares of forest and meadow.
Mind you, if local patch can include garden birding, then my kitchen step is pretty good - Crested Tits, Golden Orioles, Lesser Spotted Eagles over, Bitterns calling, Rosefinch by the pond, etc :)

[Larry Lade]

My local patch begins on the southern edge of Saint Joseph, Missouri, USA. It is where Lake Contrary is situated. My patch includes about a 16 square mile area. Some features of this area are: Lake Contrary, a couple of other small oxbow lakes, the Missouri River (with riverside woods), some residential areas, cultivated "bottom land" and some farms. My "list" total for this area is 228 species. I usually do quite a bit of the birding from my vehicle, but I do get out a walk some. The area is probably 95 percent private property so doing "a lot of walking" is not really an option. I have established good rapport with quite a few of owners of the properties in this area. This gives me considerable more accessibility to certain areas within "my patch". My usual birding day in the area commences at about 7:30/8:00 AM and continues until about 12:30 PM.

[lassa8]

I guess for me it would be Thousand Hills State Park, which is about 7 miles west of my university in Kirksville, MO. It's mostly a hilly oak-hickory forest with a small lake (about 570 acres...it gets passed over by most migrating waterfowl) and a few pine plantations. The park itself is a bit over 3000 acres, but a good part of it is inaccessible without hiking about six miles. Luckily, there seems to be pretty good birding along the park road and on short one-two mile hikes around the lake.

[Viv]

my local patch is about a mile up the road, it is an estuary on the east coast and as such we get loads of waders. There are also freshwater lagoons and scrub so there are lots of woodland birds, and some wildfowl, and several raptors.

[treecreeper]

Excellent thread - I'm a bit of a local patch obsessive.

Mine is about a five minute walk from home due to the absence of a back gate - otherwise I'd be straight there !

It is wonderfully varied and that's why I love it. It is predominantly broadleaved woodland ( 2 medium-sized woods )but also contains lots of unintensive farmland and meadow grassland as well as a major river ( Tyne ) running beside it. There are seven small ponds plus two old disused quarries and one working quarry. The only thing I'm lacking is coast. It takes around three hours to cover well.

The great thing about local patches is that you find your own birds and become familiar with their habits and favoured spots which IMO is far more fun than driving to nature reserves or sitting in hides for hours.

[tomjenner]

My local patch is the mouth of the Rio Jiboa, which takes about an hour to drive to from my house. If I tried anywhere nearer to San Salvador I would need to take an armed guard with me. However, its well worth the drive as I've seen about 160 species there, including two firsts for El Salvador!
Tom

[Rob Williams]

When I'm short of time it's the local river, about 200 yards away. When I've a bit more time it's a local nature reserve, 10 minutes away on foot (walking through the first patch!). I usually spend about an hour and a quarter in there, mostly standing around. 40+ species so far, and counting.


Rob

[Michael W]

I guess my patch would be our property. It is 25 acres on a slight mountain (2900 ft elevation), mostly field with lots of edge habitat. Also pine woods, with some fir mixed in, and what I call "serviceberry groves" (not surprisingly, these are groves of serviceberry bushes) with some pines.

I have seen 123 (I think) species on the place, and my dad has seen a couple more that I haven't. I usually cover the area in about an hour, but sometimes it takes longer if there's a lot of activity.

I am doing a site survey for Ebird. I report what I see each time I go out (2-7 days a week, depending on the birds that are there). I have found that Ebird is a good way to keep track of our birds, and it helps out a little with science. I can run monthly, weekly, or yearly reports, as well as my daily list. It's quick and easy, too. It takes less than five minutes each time I enter counts.

I would strongly suggest that all N American members use Ebird (located at www.ebird.org). It is an excellent way to contribute to science, especially if you go to the same place multiple times.

Michael

[billj]

My patch is several acres right outside the door/window. If I choose I can stay inside and watch all the feeders through 4 windows with one way glass, so I can see out but they can't see me. Once I go out I can walk as many miles as I wish on gravel roads through woods and farms owned by Amish neighbors. They are all birders so it is possible to go anywhere I choose, and do, especially when involved with the Ohio Bird Atlas during the month of January. Once in a while an Amish horse and buggy might pass but it doesn't disturb the wildlife. This area in Dundee, Ohio has been number one in the state the past several years for the Great Backyard Bird Count in February, conducted by Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Audubon. Bill Jackson, Amish Country, Ohio

[John o'Sullivan]

I've two patches that I consider local. Two resevoirs that are now about 10 minutes drive from the house (they used to be 5). I've moved house, the resevoirs are in the same place (see ynysyfro thread) and one that is a four hour flight away, but 30 seconds walk from my other house ( see thread south east turkey). Apart from july to september when I become a Goldcliff obsessive, I rarely bird any where else. Another local patch obsessive.

[Larry Lade]

Bill, keep us posted on how your atlasing turns out in January!

Good to hear from you again.

We are getting ready to eat some turkey (and all the fixin's)!

Happy Thanksgiving!

[boyinthebush]

My local patch is about 30 seconds away. Lucky old me. I live RIGHT on the edge of a town... turn right into town, turn left into farmland. So behind the house there's a stream, farmers fields, some grassy bits, a variety or trees and hedgerows dotted around and there is large wooded area at the other side of the farmers fields. Sounds great doesn't it! The downside is 90% of it is off limits... the woods are private, the fields are private, so I often spend lots of time squinting at dots in the distance. But there is a nice path that runs along the egde of it all lined with hedges and trees so it's still rather pleasant. It's a great seasonal place to watch birds... lots of swallows and housemartins in the summer, fieldfare and the like in the winter. I might not be able to get at most of it, but I can look and I love it. If only I could get close enough to the tawny owl that I hear most nights "somewhere in the forbidden zone".

[birdman]

Technically, I live on my local patch, although that depends on the exact circumstances.

Like bitb above, I live right on the edge of town, and my garden backs onto open ground. But as I don't have a back gate, it's a two minute walk to get there.

However, when I am "doing my patch" my count starts as soon as I set foot outside, and continues until I get in on my return.

On the other hand, though, when I am going to work, as I exit the front door I start my "journey to work" sightings.

For the record, my garden never constitutes part of my local patch.

I guess all this shows

a) just how pedantic I am

and

b) that we birders, I guess, are never "off".

[Leicaman]

Local Woodland 1 mile. River estuary and salt marsh 1 to 1.5 miles.

David Lee

[helenol]

My "local patch" is literally a step out of the front door - into woods.

[mini-colster]

Hi,
I have a 30 minute walk through my town before I get to where Stort Navigation starts on River Stort (lock no.1). The Stort navigation runs 13.5 miles before joining the river Lee. I sometimes walk down the whole river, which takes me 5 hours altogether, but I usually do about a third of it. But there's a few areas that I walk around by the side of the river, like Rushy Mead and Sawbridgeworth Marsh, so that means I walk even more.
Cheers, Mark

[edenwatcher]

I don't have to leave the house, though I do occasionally go down the garden or up the drive! See http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=15443

134 spp in 2 years.

Rob

[dave m]

My local patch is about 1 square mile of Sussex Downland,about a ten minute walk away. I feel very lucky becuase I can walk through it if I walk the long way round to work.

[Kes]

Well today I was a 15-20 minute walk away from a Kestrel right on the border of my local moor (which would take a full day to circumnavigate).

The river is 10 minutes away and the lower dales a 45-50 minute cycle.

[calbirder]

Mine is a few acres of oak woodlands and I can walk there in about a minute. I got very lucky.

[toucan]

my local patch currently covers a 2.92 sub urban neighborhood, and is expected to be growing to the whole sub urban area that will be 5 to 8 times the size of the current one, im still not sure about the border of the area so couldn't estimate the actual area of the place. Current patch is just surrounding areas of my house, that is eventually mostly terace house, but with a few fields around as neighborhood here usually have their own field with some big angsana trees. A tiny little mining pool is continue to shrink due to rubbish dump, the pool is now is very small, possibly around 400 m2 or less now, but there are a few sewage ponds nearby that do attract some waterbirds, but only the braver species appear, im expecting egrets, but they have not show up at these ponds, usually species with better camouflage shows up. Previously, my whole neighborhood is a mining pool area, land reclaimation has basically filled up 99.99% of them, a large mining pool near my area is also recently filled up for development, sad for heron species here.

Another valuable area will be a large piece of wasted land, now is a short grassy area, great place for shrikes and snipes, and a few species that favours this type of habitat. Species is not abundant at this patch, but most species found here are very local and regular.

A little bit further away is a river side secondary growth, currently the area with the richest avifauna of my whole patch, having many forest edge species confined to this area in my whole patch.

Total species is 70++ since some species are not positively recorded yet, such as the pond heron and egrets which their exact ID is still uncertain, raptors are poorly represented at my patch with only 2 species positively identified recently, many old records are not positively identified but since my patch is a potential raptor migratory path, therefore it is likely that more than 10 species of raptors can be found.

The whole patch is not well surveyed yet with nearly 30 species are found in the last 3-4 years, and many that are regarded as rare in the past are found to be regular at the secondary growth area or the short grassland, the list is expected to grow to more than 100 species as more places are well-surveyed, currently quite hard becoz i seldom go home to check this patch due to my studies in another state.

[dafi]

i live on a large island so count the whole thing as i range all over it. I dont know if this is strictly in the spirit of things but i have lived here most of my life and know it fairly intmately. Plus you can only travel 20 mins in any direction. So i tend to think of the whole place as my back yard.

[Pinewood]

Less than one kilometre to Central Park and no more than a kilometre within the Park. The Park has provided a varied habitat which attracts many species. I always enjoy seeing cormorants, egrets or kingfishers catching and eating prey. This year my block of flats has had a nice assortment of avian visitors, including northern mockingbirds, house finches, a common redpoll [maybe] and northern cardinals.

Happy bird watching,
Arthur Pinewood :scribe:

[MKinHK]

An interesting question as there are a cupl eof birds which I've seen just beyond the boundaries.

I roughly use the area that can be defined by the boundaries of the village, plus the catchment for the river that runs through it and is generally known by the same name as the village.

Unusually for Hong Kong I live out of earshot of a road so record everything I see and hear from my 2nd floor flat. Formhere I can see fields used for flower cultivation, hills rising to over 700m with a mix of grassland, regenerating secondary forest and fungshui woodland.

50 metres away is the start of a trail up through the river valley. This contains 3 waterfalls including one of about 30m high set in some of the best forest in Hong Kong. The species count shows how good it is.

Cheers
Mike

[JimMorris]

I don't have a local patch as such so most of my birding is done in the garden. It's pretty good as gardens go. 46 species so far, the latest being a quick visit from a Tree Sparrow.

[gyrfalcon]

I've recently moved to a house right on the edge of a "large village".
I'm in walking distance of some woodland, and grazing land/meadow, plus a large field of "wasteground" with a paddock, and some arable farmland. So I guess that is my local patch in the strictest sense. I've found some nice birds here in my first winter/spring including Woodcock, Merlin, Wheatear, Whinchat, Nightingale and Grasshopper Warbler. All within walking distance of the house, (although I usually drive and stop off there en-route to shopping or something else!) An SSSI of "New Forest" type woodland a short 5 minute drive away is the nearest area of real pedigree! with Woodlark, Tree Pipit and several other good species known to be in the area.
This spring I'm doing most of my birding on the Hampshire downs, which is 20-30 mins drive away. Very few birders in any of these places. Have seen about 4 in as many months!.. often very few birds too, but that is part of the challenge!

[g8ina]

Mine is also my back garden with just over 40 species logged so far. I don't drive (and use a wheelchair) so anything further away is just that - further away :(

It's OK, but I do often wish I could just get in the car and go to the Peak District, or the Long Mynd, or the Brecon Beacons, like I used to.

A good day out for me is a trip to Venus Pools in Shropshire, about 12 miles away, which, if I weren't to count my garden, would be my local patch.

[christineredgate]

I guess my local patch is the Hodbarrow RSPB reserve.Just 15 mins walk away or 10 mins on my trike.Our local river is 25yds across the road,and the beach is 50yds.The sand dunes are only a short distance,so many birds,really I am very lucky.A rich diversity of bird species in a very small area.

[GDC]

I guess my local patch would be my backyard where I feed a few birds and get to observe them. At different times I get out and travel around a bit but most of my birding is done right out the window. I do enjoy it but should try to venture a little farther away sometimes.

[Jaff]

I'm 5 mins walk from Mere Sands Wood (I walk very slowly!) and 5 mins drive from Martin Mere WWT.

Let's just say they're both pretty big.
Jaff

[andyrew]

I live in Stiffkey in Norfolk, the closest house to the marsh. So my patch is from my back door either left (titchwell) or right (cley) although my favourite bit is heading south to a hill behind the house which is probably 'my patch'

[Cyclops]

Well I suppose I have 2 local patches. One is a newish nature reserve about 20 minutes walk away with a decent sized reservoir, tho it tends to be frequented by chavs on whiney motorbikes. Closer to home I found a wild unused track with song birds a plenty(and deer) but no water.

[s. james]

My local patch (Oxford Island on the shores of Lough Neagh) is about 3 miles from my house. However adjacent to it is the house where my granny was born and brought up so I have quite a strong connection to the area.