Stonefaction
Dundee Birding....(target 150 in 2024).
As the title of the thread says - what is your best and/or favourite "self-found" bird?
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Best/Favourite "Self-found" bird. (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Stonefaction
- Start date
Ring-necked Duck. A 1st for Skye.
Rich
Rich
Still this one I think:
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=100646
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=100646
Gill Osborne
Well-known member
Probably my two best would be the Spotted Crake on April 22nd 2013 at a site in Northumberland :t: I went out hoping for returning migrants and had this particular bird step out in front of me and march along the boardwalk in front for a good 100 yards or so!
The other was my first ever 'proper' rarity - a Grey Phalarope! I always head out birding on Christmas Day and something made me choose Stag Rocks at Bamburgh instead of my local beach at Boulmer. As I approached the car parking area overlooking the beach I noticed a small pale bird in the shallows. I knew instantly what it might be and was shaking with excitement as I parked up and headed closer on foot. Only other person around was a fellow birder from Yorkshire who I met an hour later and I put him onto the bird. My only regret (which still niggles me like crazy!) was not thinking to send the report in to my local recorder and getting my name in the county report :smoke: After 30 years birding I could have finally qualified as a Real Birder :-O
My write up is post number 9020....scroll down...
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=36750&page=361
The other was my first ever 'proper' rarity - a Grey Phalarope! I always head out birding on Christmas Day and something made me choose Stag Rocks at Bamburgh instead of my local beach at Boulmer. As I approached the car parking area overlooking the beach I noticed a small pale bird in the shallows. I knew instantly what it might be and was shaking with excitement as I parked up and headed closer on foot. Only other person around was a fellow birder from Yorkshire who I met an hour later and I put him onto the bird. My only regret (which still niggles me like crazy!) was not thinking to send the report in to my local recorder and getting my name in the county report :smoke: After 30 years birding I could have finally qualified as a Real Birder :-O
My write up is post number 9020....scroll down...
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=36750&page=361
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Easy: 1st summer male Citrine Wagtail, Fleet Pond, Hampshire, May 1993. What an unbelievably stonking bird to greet my shocked and slightly hung-over eyes as I raised my bins on a bright spring Saturday morning on my local patch.
John
John
Jon Turner
Well-known member
Desert Wheatear in North Devon!
Andy Adcock
Worst person on Birdforum
I identified the Snowy Egret in Scotland despite never getting a mention, does that count?
I was genning up for a trip to Trinidad at the time so had become familiar with Snowy Egret and whem a (former) friend, sent me the pictures of the Little Egret he had found, I nearly fell over. I tried to get the news out but all the Norfolk names were out on Sue Johns 50th. I eventually got the pic to Andrew Raines I think it was. I never got any credit though without me, it may never have been seen by the masses.
A
I was genning up for a trip to Trinidad at the time so had become familiar with Snowy Egret and whem a (former) friend, sent me the pictures of the Little Egret he had found, I nearly fell over. I tried to get the news out but all the Norfolk names were out on Sue Johns 50th. I eventually got the pic to Andrew Raines I think it was. I never got any credit though without me, it may never have been seen by the masses.
A
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So you found that! What a cracking find: I saw it on 15 May 1993, my first and only Citrine Wag. So thanks very much, it was a great day. I took a couple of dozen photos of the bird, beautiful lemon and grey with those white wingbars. I wasn't among those photographers who (in my opinion) were trying to get a bit too close: just hung back and was perfectly content with relatively small images (and was thanked for it). Someone pointed out what they reckoned was a Honey Buzzard going over, but I was concentrating more on the wagtail.
As for self-found birds, best I got was fairly minor league - Melodious Warbler at Church Norton, can't remember the year, though I've got the notes somewhere.
Finding my first Corncrake in 2007 in the Hebrides.
Andy Adcock
Worst person on Birdforum
Dusky Warbler on Shetland, Buff-breasted Sand in Nottingham in 92
Pallid Harrier, Citrine Wagtail and Penduline Tit, all rarities in St Petersburg
All my Russian birds are self found as there are no other birders!
A
Pallid Harrier, Citrine Wagtail and Penduline Tit, all rarities in St Petersburg
All my Russian birds are self found as there are no other birders!
A
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John Cantelo
Well-known member
To be rather more mundane than other posters here, I think mine has to be a Pied Flycatcher. It wasn't even my first but it was on my Mum's washing line in our small garden in a built-up area of Southampton and I was only 13 or so. I still remember the excitement and thrill that bird gave me!
rosbifs
PutAin STOP
Black Kite - probably about 1977 at Cley - I was never put on the rareties submission because they didn't think a 9 year old would help with the rareties commitee. I think it was 10th record, modern, at time (but it was a long time ago to remember).
A bit like Andy not many birders here so lots of firsts. Pallid Harrier (that I miss identified at the time) here gives me greatest pleasure and also most nightmares...
A bit like Andy not many birders here so lots of firsts. Pallid Harrier (that I miss identified at the time) here gives me greatest pleasure and also most nightmares...
Bird_Bill
Well-known member
"It" found me....
Common Redpoll (Acanthis flammea) during one of the cyclic irruptions that delivered it to my former residence
at roughly 38.78° N, 90.49° W, in the US. Jan. 2012
Redpoll and Eurasian Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus), introduced to the area,
wound up posing together.
Common Redpoll (Acanthis flammea) during one of the cyclic irruptions that delivered it to my former residence
at roughly 38.78° N, 90.49° W, in the US. Jan. 2012
Redpoll and Eurasian Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus), introduced to the area,
wound up posing together.
Attachments
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Steve Lister
Senior Birder, ex County Recorder, Garden Moths.
In the UK it has to be the Swithland Reservoir Crag Martin back in 1999 - a county first and the first twitchable one anywhere.
Further afield Great Knot in Morocco a long time ago was the first for both Africa and the Western Pal.
Steve
Further afield Great Knot in Morocco a long time ago was the first for both Africa and the Western Pal.
Steve
A bit tricky, this one. We know what's meant by 'self-found', don't we ?
It means 'found and/or identified by me before anyone else', no ?
But - does it have to be a rarity ? Does it even have to be a 'first' for the location/country ?
The reason I'm rambling on like this is that many of my 'best' birds were not really rarities, some of them not even my first sighting of the species. But I guess the question wasn't really about such birds so I'll refrain from blethering about them.
Which brings me down (about time too, you cry) to Ortolan Bunting, Cheddar Reservoir, Somerset, around 1990. Apparently the first ever Spring record for Somerset (or so the recorder said). And a cracking bird to boot.
[EDIT - doesn't begin to compare with Steve Lister's, does it ?]
It means 'found and/or identified by me before anyone else', no ?
But - does it have to be a rarity ? Does it even have to be a 'first' for the location/country ?
The reason I'm rambling on like this is that many of my 'best' birds were not really rarities, some of them not even my first sighting of the species. But I guess the question wasn't really about such birds so I'll refrain from blethering about them.
Which brings me down (about time too, you cry) to Ortolan Bunting, Cheddar Reservoir, Somerset, around 1990. Apparently the first ever Spring record for Somerset (or so the recorder said). And a cracking bird to boot.
[EDIT - doesn't begin to compare with Steve Lister's, does it ?]
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rosbifs
PutAin STOP
That's the beauty of it he didn't have your self-found - only you can have that experience - etched in your memory that no-one can change. I guess people do compare self finds, in which a W Pal has to rate fairly highly
There is a complicated set of rules about what you can count which I don't fully understand but I get the impression birds already seen somewhere don't count - migration points etc. In fact there is a thread dedicated to the question - again that I wasn't fully understanding..8-P.
Jon Turner
Well-known member
Oh, and I found a Citrine Wagtail in Porto Pollenca, Majorca a very long time ago, and it was possibly a first for Spain. Unfortunately the credit went to one PJ Grant!
Stonefaction
Dundee Birding....(target 150 in 2024).
Which is why I included "favourite" in the thread title. They don't have to be firsts, or rarities, just the ones that you enjoyed most for whatever reason. Not everyone will find a first, or a second, third whatever, but we will all chance upon unexpected birds that make our birding day/week/month/year/lifetime, from time to time. Those 'favourites' are as interesting as the 'bests'.
