Top 5 of 2017 (1 Viewer)

Paul, you've had a very good year!

No British ticks for me in 2017, away for most that I needed, the Needletail was too brief and I dipped the Yellow Warbler, but my top 5 others are as follows:

1. Resplendent Quetzal. October
2. Flame-faced Tanager. October
3. White-winged Nightjar, January
4. Elfin Woods Warbler, February
5. Blue Cotinga. October

My top 5 were made even better by getting photographs of all of them.

The Hawk Owl mega a few nights ago got the old pulse racing, so maybe, just maybe, something good to go for over the festive period would be nice.

Paul Chapman said:

You've done that on purpose!!

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Having visited five countries in 2017, I'll do one from each:
Australia- seeing 3 Australian Painted Snipes in the Gold Coast was amazing
Uganda- no question here, bird of the year, Shoebill Stork, probably the best thing I have ever seen!
Kenya- an awesome view of a Spotted Eagle Owl in the morth of the country
UK- 16 Parrot Crossbills in Surrey
Spain- fantastic views eye-level views of Cinereous Vultures at Alado

1 - Fork-tailed Flycatcher - lifer, a bird i've wanted to see for 40 years...
2 - Slatey-backed Gull - lifer. ridiculously close views....
3 - Arctic Tern - self found, long overdue Ontario lifer
4 - Ruff - self found...many years since previous one
5 - Painted Redstart - self found Canadian lifer, wish i could have definitively documented it....

stuartelsom said:

Paul, you've had a very good year!

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Cheers. Here's to unblocking Needletail next year. I hope you and yours are well and I was pleased to see the pics of your trip to the Farnes with your dad in June on your flickr site.

All the best

temmie said:

Abroad:
1. Recurve-billed Bushbird

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I'd have thought the Rondonia Bushbird was even better

Must have been either my subconscience or the spelling checker! Darn spelling checker ;-)

1). Rock Thrush in Gwent. An atmospheric twitch in beautiful surroundings in heavy rain and driving winds.

2). Red-throated Pipit at Landguard. A bogey bird for me and I even managed a half-decent photo.

3). Great Shearwater at Portland. We'd been seawatching for some time without success and didn't bother to check the gull flock close offshore. Fortunately another birder did.

4).Elegant Tern at Church Norton.

5). Barred Warbler at Titchfield Haven. A totally unexpected patch tick giving brilliant close views to all and sundry.

Dave W

Its always fun to think back on the year and pick out the top highlights.

My top five are:

1. White-tailed Tropicbird: it was magnificent to see several birds flying over the forest of the Black River Gorge during a work trip to Mauritius in October, but utterly mind-blowing to watch them streaking and floating across an achingly beautiful blue sky from a catamaran moored above an offshore coral reef the next day. Not only was this my top pick for the year, but also no. 2 on my all-time list, which covers over 30 years of birding!

2. Brown Wood Owl: finding two juveniles and two adults on my old patch during the usually birdless summer sweatfest that is early June in Hong Kong was truly memorable. this was the first report in HK of a pair raising two young and my first time to see the adult birds (having only seen juveniles in three previous years).

3. Tiger Shrike: Previously one of my most painful dips, this is a bird I've long searched for in Hong Kong and was delighted to finally connect with a highly confiding juvenile at the very odd Ho Man Tin site - a hilltop ringed by skyscrapers in the heart of downtown Kowloon.

4. Brown Fish Owl: An amazingly approachable bird found perched atop a bronze flamingo in a pond in the small urban park while I walked my dogs. It not only watched me unconcerned from less than ten metres, but even allowed me to come back and photograph and video it - a real privilege! The light from my 22nd floor is one of those in the background!

5. Baikal Bush Warbler: Possibly the oddest twitch I've ever been on, this bird frequented the raised flowerbeds and hedges of a podium-level park in eastern Kowloon early last year. Another friendly soul it was perfectly happy to tolerate birders and photographers coming within a couple of metres as it scuttled about under the hedges and poked about among the chrysanthemums.

A virtual goodie from a previous year was the eventual acceptance by the Records Committee of my single observer November record of Hong Kong's third Common Swift over Long Valley more than a decade earlier (no pic).

Cheers
Mike

Great shots and story, Mike.

My top 5 of the year in the UK:
1. Collared Pratincole; Fair Isle - May : I've seen a few Collared Prats in the UK and thousands abroad over the years but this individual is the top of the list for two reasons. Firstly its a pratincole and they're one of the best 'waders' in the world and secondly the location. Watching this bird hawking over the towering sea cliffs of Easter Lother and Dronger on Fair Isle was just so out of place it made the experience an event.
2. Red-flanked Bluetail; Isbister, Shetland - October : another species on the list which I have seen many of previously but this bird was sssooooo obliging that it was just such fun to spend hours there with it.
3. Thrush Nightingale; Shetland - October : without doubt the best and most showy of the 'sprossers' I've ever seen in the UK (I've heard more than I've seen). The fact the bird would occasionally run around right out in the open a few metres from those watching will be hard to now beat in a UK context.
4. Elegant Tern - It's on the list for the sole reason it was my only UK tick of the year and nothing else really. Just about OK scope views perhaps keep it further down the list.
5. Marsh Tit - This may be a bit of a surprise addition to the top birds of the year but one that was in a Hockley Garden in the summer meant it was an addition to my local list and as the last one of these was something like 30 years ago I had long thought it never make a return. Once a species that bred in local woods to now being a local vagrant.

Bit of an understated year for me with neither big trips abroad or any top tier twitches, but a steadier stream than last year at least:

5 - Caspian Gull at Thames Barrier Park - this one had just been vexing me for so long, but when I finally got to see it, the views were good.

4 - Grasshopper Warbler in Northants - another long time bogey bird, finally caught up with near enough that I could walk home afterwards.

3 - Wilson's Phalarope at Oare Marshes - My best rarity of the year, but views were distant and not in great light.

2 - Parrot Crossbills in Surrey - Crossbills as an entire group have been vexing me for a long time now, so it was fun to get some decent views of an even more difficult bird to catch up with than the Common, without having to go to Scotland.

1 - Bluethroat at Willow Tree Fen - Only very brief views, and not in full plumage, but Bluethroat has been a species I've wanted to see since I was a child and finally managed to catch up with.

1) Macgillivray's warbler- First record in heavily birded Harris county (Houston, Tx) in 5 years, and my first rare bird to find on my own

2) Green kingfisher- Seen at the mouth of Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend NP

3) Golden eagle- Soaring above a bald eagle in Glacier NP

4) Red-cockaded woodpecker- Seen in the WG Jones State Forest just north of Houston. Not too difficult to find, but a threatened species so still exciting to see

5) Merlin- Finally found one on Dec 30, chasing a dove

This was my first full year birding, so all the above were lifers.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

For me this is not only about the birds themselves but it is the whole experience finding them that makes them special.

My top five:

5) Long-tailed Hermit. I love hummingbirds so there are many of them that I could nominate. But this was my last and exactly 100th hummingbird species that I have seen. (Brownsberg, Suriname)

4) Parrot Crossbills in Surrey, one of 5 lifers this year in the UK. I don't usually twitch, but I thought that even if I came across one by myself in for example Scotland, I wouldn't be 100% sure of ID so this was a good opportunity to see them with certainty. I arrived early at the site and spent almost the whole day there. Nothing. But just before I was about to give up the flock of 16 showed up, and showed very well!

3) Musician Wren. When I heard this bird in the forest... WOW! such a beautiful song! And when I finally saw the bird right in front of me it turned out to be very handsome too! (Brownsberg, Suriname)

2) White-fronted Manakin. I spent a week in Brownsberg National Park (Suriname), birding in the daytime and sleeping in a hammock at night. This is how I like to bird/ travel. Solo, ultra-low budget backpack-birding without guide. I've seen many birds and other things (for example standing eye to eye with a puma at one point). However, one bird I couldn't find was this species. On my last day late afternoon I finally got fantastic views of two males. Nice ending of a very memorable trip.

1) Gilded Flicker. In the spring of 2017 I solo thru-hiked the entire length (800 miles) of the Arizona National Scenic Trail. Camping alone in the stunning Sonora Desert was one the best nature experiences of my life! I could nominate many of the beautiful birds I encountered on the trail but I think the most beautiful one was the Gilded Flicker. Very common and always present on the massive saguaro cacti, this is the bird that for me symbolises this epic trek.

Top 5 UK birds of 2017

1) Yellow Warbler: Dorset, UK & WP tick
2) Two-barred Warbler: Dorset, UK & WP tick
3) Toss up between Great Shearwater and Spectacled Warbler for number 3: both Dorset ticks but I guess the Spectacled gets it as its much rarer nationally
4) Grasshopper Warbler: I ring quite a few each year, but seeing over 40 in a single 60ft net at Durlston on 20th August at first light was remarkable. I ringed 65 that day and 209 in the autumn - one control ringed the previous autumn in Hampshire.
5)Hawfinch: see them every year in the New Forest but a flock of 80+ a few miles from home was remarkable

Ian

ABA Region:

White-winged Tern
Cook's Petrel
Black-backed Oriole
Craveri's Murrelet
Great Grey Owl

World:

Rondonia Bushbird
White-breasted Antbird
Black-faced Anthrush
Guianan Cock-of-the-rock
Rufous-tailed Robin

1. Rail Babbler
2. Red-headed Trogon
3. Silver-breasted Broadbill
4. Long-tailed Broadbill
5. a toss-up between Lesser Shortwing, Buff-breasted and Streaked Wren Babblers, all birds that had given me the run-around before

1. Ross's Gull - a bird like that beats all the species I saw abroad this year! A mythical species in a magical setting - four hours of driving in snowy darkness to a frozen lake in the Adirondacks, where a juvenile Ross's Gull was putting on a nice show in the continuing snow storm.

2. Gray-throated Chat - my favorite of the Yucatan endemics from our trip to Mexico last January, made all the sweeter because I wasn't sure I would connect with it given the itinerary I had chosen. I had several close encounters with these beauties off the beaten track.

3. Marvelous Spatuletail - no explanation needed!

4. Ochre-fronted Antpitta - one of many Peruvian endemics from my trip in November, hard to choose among them but antpittas are just great, and experience of seeing the pair come in to worms through the dripping cloud forest was magical.

5. Least Tern - a main focus of my new job in Mississippi, monitoring and protecting this species, I really fell in love with these guys as I worked closely with them all summer. I hear their chatter in my sleep and look forward to their return.

Fork-tailed Flycatcher? Wow, cool. I presume it was the same that showed up in Tommy Thompson Park in Toronto. I managed to miss it; however I got see my first Scissor-tailed Flycatcher in Toronto this year.