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2017 Western Palearctic Big Year (2 Viewers)

So they left the Azores just as Corvo was about to have its best day of the autumn. See their latest post about breaking Rule Number One 'Never leave Corvo'.
Lots of ammunition for critical comments, however their honesty about this error does them credit, even if their decision doesn't!
 
Richard Prior said:
So they left the Azores just as Corvo was about to have its best day of the autumn. See their latest post about breaking Rule Number One 'Never leave Corvo'.
Lots of ammunition for critical comments, however their honesty about this error does them credit, even if their decision doesn't!
Click to expand...

It's however remarkable how many bad or at least strange decisions they have already made this year.
- Not starting in europe to clear off staying vagrants, thus missing Pine Bunting and Red-necked Stint
- Going for that Albatross more than 3 month after its original rediscovery
- Having random weeks off without any birding and explanations. It would be much easier to understand for outsiders if they explained why they are taking off those days/weeks. They might have very valid reasons
- Not going to those islands (Cape Verde, Azores, Canaries, Iceland) earlier in the year so they can fully concentrate on twitching later in the year
- Not going to the Cape Verde to pick up pelagic birds that are probably gone when they finally arrive
- That Egypt episode
- Not going to Polar Urals (maybe too expensive?)
- Not trying for the White-throated Bee-eater
- Not trying for pretty much anything that showed well for a week before.
- Not going earlier in September to Corvo, when it became apparent that it was going to be a good season
- Leaving the goddamn Azores in goddamn October!!!

This list could probably be even expanded.

They did a good job cleaning up much of the WPs residents, but they are doing a terrible job at getting rares
 
Last edited:
Blog post here:-

http://www.bigyearwp.com/index.php/2017/10/21/rule-1-never-leave-corvo

Personally, I think that they have done a remarkable job. Logistically doing this as a threesome makes twitching and decision-making very hard. They are plainly birders at heart rather than twitchers and not necessarily WP listers as such so don't have too much ingrained as to the Corvo possibilities. It leaves room for a challenger which would not have seemed realistic if they had stayed for the full mid-September period till now!

Cabot's Tern looks a likely addition from the photos in due course?

http://www.bigyearwp.com/index.php/igoterra-ticks/

All the best
 
Maffong said:
It's however remarkable how many bad or at least strange decisions they have already made this year.
- Not starting in europe to clear off staying vagrants, thus missing Pine Bunting and Red-necked Stint
- Going for that Albatross more than 3 month after its original rediscovery
- Having random weeks off without any birding and explanations. It would be much easier to understand for outsiders if they explained why they are taking off those days/weeks. They might have very valid reasons
- Not going to those islands (Cape Verde, Azores, Canaries, Iceland) earlier in the year so they can fully concentrate on twitching later in the year
- Not going to the Cape Verde to pick up pelagic birds that are probably gone when they finally arrive
- That Egypt episode
- Not going to Polar Urals (maybe too expensive?)
- Not trying for the White-throated Bee-eater
- Not trying for pretty much anything that showed well for a week before.
- Not going earlier in September to Corvo, when it became apparent that it was going to be a good season
- Leaving the goddamn Azores in goddamn October!!!

This list could probably be even expanded.

They did a good job cleaning up much of the WPs residents, but they are doing a terrible job at getting rares
Click to expand...

The Oriental Plover in Norway when they were in SWEDEN!:-C
 
Paul Chapman said:
Blog post here:-

http://www.bigyearwp.com/index.php/2017/10/21/rule-1-never-leave-corvo

Personally, I think that they have done a remarkable job. Logistically doing this as a threesome makes twitching and decision-making very hard. They are plainly birders at heart rather than twitchers and not necessarily WP listers as such so don't have too much ingrained as to the Corvo possibilities. It leaves room for a challenger which would not have seemed realistic if they had stayed for the full mid-September period till now!

Cabot's Tern looks a likely addition from the photos in due course?

http://www.bigyearwp.com/index.php/igoterra-ticks/

All the best
Click to expand...

From their mission statement:
We europeans have a birding area, called WP – Western Palearctic and quite a few european birders maintain a WP list. I do.
Click to expand...
The goal is to see as many bird species as possible in WP during 2017.
Click to expand...

No matter how difficult decision making might be the decisions I mentioned above and especially the leaving Corvo decision would've been handled very differently by almost everybody else. They added 13 species in the Azores in 15 days, mostly vagrants, but felt that wasn't good enough for them. What the heck?!
 
I don't know how deep their pockets are so perhaps leaving now, which seems absurd ornithologically, could simply be a matter of financial constraints. It's not hard to run low on funds towards the end of the year even with a steady income stream and modest expenditure. Throw in the costs of flights (especially open-ended ones), paying for accommodation and all the inevitable additional costs it must be very easy!
 
John Cantelo said:
I don't know how deep their pockets are so perhaps leaving now, which seems absurd ornithologically, could simply be a matter of financial constraints. It's not hard to run low on funds towards the end of the year even with a steady income stream and modest expenditure. Throw in the costs of flights (especially open-ended ones), paying for accommodation and all the inevitable additional costs it must be very easy!
Click to expand...


But surely an on-the-spot decision to leave the following day results in a considerably more expensive flight than sticking to their planned departure date?
 
On Facebook under their link to "Mostly Yanks" someone asked: "Do you have a budget for the year?" to which they replied "Not really no." So financials don't seem to play much of a role.
 
Pedro Ramalho said:
Exactly, it's simply incomprehensible, leaving Corvo earlier than the original plan, without a logical reason, it's just silly.
Click to expand...

I personally think that they were very stressed by the last Saturday where they didn't manage to see any of the megas on Corvo. I think that this could have played a remarkable role within their decision to leave the Azores - although I was very confident that they would come back to Corvo after the Azores Bulfinch! Does anyone know if the many many many yanks yesterday were easily gettable or as tough as last weekend? I wish them good luck for their tries in Europe and hope that they will go for some rarities and don't stay home...
 
DanielDoer said:
Does anyone know if the many many many yanks yesterday were easily gettable or as tough as last weekend?
Click to expand...

A couple of British friends who came off yesterday saw the Magnolia, Black-throated Green and Hooded Warblers in the two days before they came off. Probably commoner stuff as well.

http://birdingcorvo2013.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/the-rock-rocks.html

http://birdingcorvo2013.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/magnolia-warbler-delight.html

Not had any information today as most Brits also left but they've got work I expect!

All the best
 
Maffong said:
No matter how difficult decision making might be the decisions I mentioned above and especially the leaving Corvo decision would've been handled very differently by almost everybody else. They added 13 species in the Azores in 15 days, mostly vagrants, but felt that wasn't good enough for them. What the heck?!
Click to expand...

Very easy to say. They'll have been sleep deprived, getting soaked, getting stressed, etc. I've made the odd poor decision that has cost me a bird and normally I don't. A year list is very hard work. I've done a 330's in Britain. Dead easy by comparison and by October I was struggling. A friend tells me as he walked out in a gale into the rain for his 350th bird in a British yearlist, he was thoroughly fed up rather than elated!

So of course, sitting by my keyboard, I'd hope that I'd have done all the regular species by now and be staying on Corvo for the rest of the month but would I be trying for the Mourning Dove & Parula on Flores or not? It is not easy.

All the best
 
This Big Year is just so different to any big year I have before, be it the world big years or the american ones. None had as much vacation time and most were totally elated afterwards. And they could've decided to just have some days of rest on Corvo and played some cards, maybe gone swimming and chased after what others found for them.
I've had some pretty boring days while birding, too, but I don't think I would've left the best possible location at the best possible time, cause i was bored
 
They have made mistakes, for sure, but their Big Year has still been immensely entertaining to read about and they have done tremendously well. Someone (probably one person rather than a trio) will beat their target, maybe next year or the year after, and we will all enjoy reading their exploits too. But please, lay off them a little bit everyone - they are doing this for fun and if they want to take a week off, go sailing in the Baltic, misidentify the first vulture they see as a Ruppells, or spend the last 3 weeks of the year playing tiddlywinks in Malmo then that's their call!
 
Sam Bryo said:
They have made mistakes, for sure, but their Big Year has still been immensely entertaining to read about and they have done tremendously well. Someone (probably one person rather than a trio) will beat their target, maybe next year or the year after, and we will all enjoy reading their exploits too. But please, lay off them a little bit everyone - they are doing this for fun and if they want to take a week off, go sailing in the Baltic, misidentify the first vulture they see as a Ruppells, or spend the last 3 weeks of the year playing tiddlywinks in Malmo then that's their call!
Click to expand...

:t:

And bear in mind that their final total on a comparable basis would place them about half way down the top 100 on Netfugl so it can't be that easy!!

http://www.netfugl.dk/ranking.php?id=wp&mode=ranking

All the best
 

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