Best birding in Europe? (1 Viewer)

[pjacobs]

I have a lot of fun browsing ebird's data and I noticed that the UK has the highest species count in Europe with 616 species, which is higher than #2 Spain (603 species).

I thought this was maybe due to more birders in the UK, which may be true, but to my surprise there are actually over 100k more checklists submitted in Spain.

I love birding in the UK, and the birding culture, but I've always considered Spain the place to go if you wanted to see the greatest diversity of species in Europe.

Is anyone else surprised by this? Is there a better way to interpret these numbers?
Does Britain have more rarities, which inflates the total number of birds seen?

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

I would say you've pretty much answered your own question in the final sentence. Britain is very good for vagrants and a large proportion of the birds on the British list are vagrants. This is enhanced by there being a lot of birders in Britain to find them. If you want to see regularly occurring European species, Britain isn't so good and Spain would probably be much better.

 

[THE_FERN]

... And if you want country or region endemics then the answer's not "Scotland". But one might argue our huge seabird colonies and wintering waterfowl flocks keep us in the running

 

[pppppvvvv]

It's a pity the explore/target species analysis doesn't have an option to exclude species with a frequency less than 5% or less than 1% of checklists.
I suspect the colour coding of hotspots, and stats per country would look more like what we are "expecting" if that was possible.

In the meantime, aim for the darkest red hotspot, and pray! Although this in itself is going to distort the statistics.

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

I tend to find bar charts quite helpful on Ebird. You can get these for individual hotspots and also for countries/ regions etc. It gives a clearer sense (at least if there are lots of visits) of what's likely to occur somewhere and at what time of the year. You can easily see if something is unlikely even if it's on the site list.

 

[James Lowther]

For context, there are I think 312 species on the British list that aren’t extinct (great auk), extirpated (lady Amherst’s pheasant) or National rarities.
So basically >300 (almost 50%) of the species on those eBird checklists from Britain are rarities. Not sure what the breakdown would be in Spain?
Cheers
James

 

[Owene]

Not looked it up but i think I got to 182 species in Spain last year with 5 days on Tenerife and 10 in the south. Never went to the mountains or mainland coast. Didn’t chase anything localised. Nothing wintering. Nothing post first week of April. Not much cat c. Didn’t really feel like I’d scratched the surface.

I’d have to travel quite a bit in U.K. to get that many species in that time span and it wouldn’t leave much low hanging fruit

 

[James Lowther]

this is a close up of the map for overall bird richness from this website

Mapping the World's Bird Diversity

Maps of bird diversity around the world, including maps of parrot and hummingbird diversity, as well as major taxonomic Orders. GIS data available.

biodiversitymapping.org

brighter yellow = higher overall diversity (not sure if this takes into account areas used during migration or just breeding and wintering ranges). There's clearly some issues with the underlying data but it gives some insight into which areas of Europe have the highest species richness.
Generally it looks like areas near the coast in the south west and south east of the continent are best, and certainly Spain is ahead of Britain in terms of regular species.
cheers,
James

 

[chowchilla]

The rarities reporting network in the UK is pretty sophisticated, so if you're prepared to travel, you can see a lot of rarities in any given year.

I live on Scilly which has over the years garnered an impressive reputation for rarities per square kilometre; though some would argue it's not as good as it was, it's still fantastic when conditions are right (i.e, not now - it's absolutely dead. Not even that many common migrants).

2022 here brought the following rarities/semi-rarities: Surf Scoter, European Spoonbill, Glossy Ibis, Spanish Yellow Wagtail, Hoopoe, Crag Martin, Purple Heron, Serin, Woodchat Shrike, Black-headed Bunting, Short-Toed Lark, Little Bittern, Rosy Starling, Icterine Warbler, Eurasian Wryneck, Western Bonelli's Warbler, Barred Warbler, Spotted Crake, Little Bunting, Common Rosefinch, Swainson's Thrush, Greenish Warbler, Radde's Warbler, Dusky Warbler, Yellow-browed Warbler, American Buff-bellied Pipit, Melodious Warbler, Balearic Shearwater, Booted Warbler, Wilson's Snipe, Pallid Swift, Red-throated Pipit, Red-breasted Flycatcher, Red-rumped Swallow, Eurasian Penduline Tit, Red-flanked Bluetail, Myrtle Warbler, Eurasian Stone Curlew, and of course a remarkable Blackburnian Warbler - all within walking or short boat ride's distance of my home.

On top of that, I missed or didn't go for European Golden Oriole (4 failed attempts - certainly heard them...), Two-barred Greenish Warbler, Black-eared Wheatear, Baird's Sandpiper, Pectoral Sandpiper, Citrine Wagtail, Pechora Pipit, Olive-backed Pipit, Bluethroat, Red-backed Shrike, Lesser Scaup, Caspian Gull, 'Soft-plumaged' Petrels, Long-tailed Skua, and Grey Phalarope.

So, under the right circumstances, rarities can feature significantly in one's year list in the UK, even if the overall variety of commoner species is less.

 

[Farnboro John]

Not looked it up but i think I got to 182 species in Spain last year with 5 days on Tenerife and 10 in the south. Never went to the mountains or mainland coast. Didn’t chase anything localised. Nothing wintering. Nothing post first week of April. Not much cat c. Didn’t really feel like I’d scratched the surface.

I’d have to travel quite a bit in U.K. to get that many species in that time span and it wouldn’t leave much low hanging fruit

I reckon on a road trip in May without any islands and no further North than Inverness you could get 195 species in the UK in 10 days. But it wouldn't be a holiday.

John

 

[Mike Crawley]

I have a lot of fun browsing ebird's data and I noticed that the UK has the highest species count in Europe with 616 species, which is higher than #2 Spain (603 species).

** I thought this was maybe due to more birders in the UK, which may be true, but to my surprise there are actually over 100k more checklists submitted in Spain **

I’m not sure how popular eBird is with U.K. listers.
Away from this forum I don’t know anyone who uses eBird (I do occasionally use Birdtrack, as do a few of my birding friends)

 

[Owene]

Yeah I think it’s doable if you go flat out. But I really wasn’t doing so in Spain. Someone doing the same in Spain would rack up loads

 

[THE_FERN]

this is a close up of the map for overall bird richness from this website

Mapping the World's Bird Diversity

Maps of bird diversity around the world, including maps of parrot and hummingbird diversity, as well as major taxonomic Orders. GIS data available.

biodiversitymapping.org

Generally it looks like areas near the coast in the south west and south east of the continent are best
cheers,
James

Pleistocene refugia. Generally where the endemics are too...

 

[pjacobs]

That would be an exhausting 10 days.

It took me 2 years of regular birding in the UK to get to 180 species, that's with very little twitching and a only a handful of trips to the coast.

I had the problem of wanting to see as many birds as possible, but also wanting to minimize my time in a car, which meant I spent a lot of time looking at the same reliable 42 species at my local patch.

 

[pjacobs]

The rarities reporting network in the UK is pretty sophisticated, so if you're prepared to travel, you can see a lot of rarities in any given year.

I live on Scilly which has over the years garnered an impressive reputation for rarities per square kilometre; though some would argue it's not as good as it was, it's still fantastic when conditions are right (i.e, not now - it's absolutely dead. Not even that many common migrants).

2022 here brought the following rarities/semi-rarities: Surf Scoter, European Spoonbill, Glossy Ibis, Spanish Yellow Wagtail, Hoopoe, Crag Martin, Purple Heron, Serin, Woodchat Shrike, Black-headed Bunting, Short-Toed Lark, Little Bittern, Rosy Starling, Icterine Warbler, Eurasian Wryneck, Western Bonelli's Warbler, Barred Warbler, Spotted Crake, Little Bunting, Common Rosefinch, Swainson's Thrush, Greenish Warbler, Radde's Warbler, Dusky Warbler, Yellow-browed Warbler, American Buff-bellied Pipit, Melodious Warbler, Balearic Shearwater, Booted Warbler, Wilson's Snipe, Pallid Swift, Red-throated Pipit, Red-breasted Flycatcher, Red-rumped Swallow, Eurasian Penduline Tit, Red-flanked Bluetail, Myrtle Warbler, Eurasian Stone Curlew, and of course a remarkable Blackburnian Warbler - all within walking or short boat ride's distance of my home.

On top of that, I missed or didn't go for European Golden Oriole (4 failed attempts - certainly heard them...), Two-barred Greenish Warbler, Black-eared Wheatear, Baird's Sandpiper, Pectoral Sandpiper, Citrine Wagtail, Pechora Pipit, Olive-backed Pipit, Bluethroat, Red-backed Shrike, Lesser Scaup, Caspian Gull, 'Soft-plumaged' Petrels, Long-tailed Skua, and Grey Phalarope.

So, under the right circumstances, rarities can feature significantly in one's year list in the UK, even if the overall variety of commoner species is less.

Birding in Scilly seems like a dream, unfortunately I haven't yet made it out there.
Seeing your list does make me wonder what the UK list would look like if you removed Scilly.

Maybe that would be a good rule of thumb for comparing country lists: first remove the top 1 or 2 % of hotspots, and then see how the rest of the country fairs.

 

[Himalaya]

I have a lot of fun browsing ebird's data and I noticed that the UK has the highest species count in Europe with 616 species, which is higher than #2 Spain (603 species).

I thought this was maybe due to more birders in the UK, which may be true, but to my surprise there are actually over 100k more checklists submitted in Spain.

I love birding in the UK, and the birding culture, but I've always considered Spain the place to go if you wanted to see the greatest diversity of species in Europe.

Is anyone else surprised by this? Is there a better way to interpret these numbers?
Does Britain have more rarities, which inflates the total number of birds seen?

I have never used these checklists and many local birders I know don't. We have our own local forums. I looked at trektellen and some of the Dutch sites have had counts of over 80 and 100 species of birds going over. Britain has much lower counts of species diversity at migration routes judging by trektellen submissions but then again many Brits probably don't submit data there.

Does the Spanish list include far flung islands like Tenerife and the Canaries?

The vagrants in Britain occur at very specific periods generally late spring and mid-autumn.

If you look at birding in the breeding season or wintering season and compare regular species then how do the countries compare?

Britain's number is definitely inflated by vagrants but even Spain has that boost too.

 

[vergan]

I have never used these checklists and many local birders I know don't. We have our own local forums. I looked at trektellen and some of the Dutch sites have had counts of over 80 and 100 species of birds going over. Britain has much lower counts of species diversity at migration routes judging by trektellen submissions but then again many Brits probably don't submit data there.

Does the Spanish list include far flung islands like Tenerife and the Canaries?

The vagrants in Britain occur at very specific periods generally late spring and mid-autumn.

If you look at birding in the breeding season or wintering season and compare regular species then how do the countries compare?

Britain's number is definitely inflated by vagrants but even Spain has that boost too.

Yes, spanish as it is (unless using iberian pwninsula explicitly) should include canary and balaric islands plus ceuta and melilla, two towns in North Africa that may add one or two species. When it came to rarities, britain have much more regarsing new world passerines, otherwhise in terms of shorebirds, asian vagrants or ducks etc, numbers should be similar.

 

[Himalaya]

Yes, spanish as it is (unless using iberian pwninsula explicitly) should include canary and balaric islands plus ceuta and melilla, two towns in North Africa that may add one or two species. When it came to rarities, britain have much more regarsing new world passerines, otherwhise in terms of shorebirds, asian vagrants or ducks etc, numbers should be similar.

If New World passerines can make it to Britain why not the same ones to Spain?

 

[Farnboro John]

If New World passerines can make it to Britain why not the same ones to Spain?

For direct impact it has as much to do with the position of the jetstream (which moves North and South like a sine wave travelling over the globe so has definite limit of travel) as anything. That more or less defines where the more northern storms originating on the US coast will make landfall in Europe.

So Ouessant gets some and the Western seaboard of the British Isles gets lots: but from year to year it may be Scilly, Shetland or points between.

It may be that Iberia is a bit too far South and has to depend on trickle down.

John

 

[Paul Chapman]

It would be interesting to compare Spain's & other countries' and the United Kingdom's annual totals and day list records. I think the comparison of all time recording does not come close to answering this question...

All the best

Paul