Top 5 of 2017 (1 Viewer)

What's your top 5 for 2017?

Struggled to narrow mine down but it came down, in the end, to a combination of species, and/ or situation.

1. Grey Partridge - my all time bogey bird.
2. Golden Plover - stunning bird on Garreg Lwyd.
3. Black Throated Diver - went for a walk around Aultbea harbour with Sars, and there was an immaculate pair very close in.
4. Golden Eagle - on Mull. Flew right over the vehicle being mobbed by a Common Buzzard. Gave a great size comparison.
5. Marsh Tit - REALLY pleased to get one of these in the garden.

Some cracking birds (for me) didn't make the cut - watching a Little Bittern with my father; superb Ruff at Titchfield with Gordon and Chris, Red-footed Falcon sat 15 metres away at Strumble, Bee-eaters, Stone Curlews - a first for me; Dotterel on Garreg Lwyd, Woodchat Shrike on the Gower and having a flyby female Goshawk at the same time etc. Etc. Rock Thrush was a great bird but it was hammering down so that got ruled out for that reason. :-O

It's not as easy as you think to narrow it down to just 5.

Rich

Top 5

Great List Rich

You are right it is hard!!!


1Pom Skuas going through Seaford in the spring great views of loads!!
1)(joint)Spotted Crake in Essex fantastic close views!!
2)Blue Rock Thrush at Beachy
3)Monty's Harrier at Blacktoft great supporting cast of very close Marsh Harriers
4)Everything on the Farnes!!!! Especially the Puffins
5)Red-footed Falcon in Surry put on a great show
6) 8 Hobbies hunting over my head at Dungeness!!!

narrowed it down to sixish told you it was hard!!

Missed the cut: Bee-eaters, Marsh Sandpiper, Elegant Tern, Baird's Sandpiper, Wilson's Phalarope, Red-necked Phalarope, Red-throated Pipit, Merlin, Wryneck, Owls, Snow Bunting, Bempton Cliffs, Spurn Point and Beardies, so many Beardies this year!!!

Subject to change....

1=) Sabine's Gull - self-found lifer among hundreds of Kittiwakes on a fog-bound beach
1=) Cory's Shearwater - another self-found lifer spotted during a spot of sea-watching at Fife Ness. Thankfully, alongside me was an experienced sea-watcher who knew exactly what it was. I'd have got there eventually by a process of elimination.
3) Reed Warbler - long overdue self-found lifer. Picked up by song first, which I was very surprised given how similar I'd always thought they sounded to Sedge Warbler when I'd listened to CDs etc.
4) Avocet - another long overdue lifer - (within a few days of Cory's sighting). One finally turning up somewhere I could get to easily and lingering long enough for me to get to see it.
5) Kestrel - a fantastically confiding male hovering within a few feet of me (could almost have held out my arm and touched him) at head height and below at Crail, until a dog came along and off he went.

(1) Scarlet-banded Barbet, Peru.
(2) reserved (the year is not over yet).
(3) Andaman Treepie – the only really distinctive Andaman Islands endemic.
(4) Eye-browed Thrush, The Netherlands – beating the Eastern Imperial Eagle because it did not cause me too much stress and showed really well.
(5) Red-necked Phalarope – best bird on my local patch this year. It attracted a few twitchers and I even managed a sound recording.

There's no doubt this is a tough ask every year. How brutal do we have to be? I'm separating British Isles and Overseas.

In the British Isles:

Yellow Warbler Portland. (Tick. Wins!)
Rock Thrush Pwll Du (Showy. Photo-tick.)
Elegant Tern Pagham Harbour (Incontrovertible. And elegant. Hurrah!)
Cuckoo Thursley (Stunning views and pix.)
Parrot Crossbill (Lerwick and Wishmoor Bottom) Not only ridiculous views to six feet in Shetland but also a local tick with the flock on the Sandhurst training area.

Abroad:

Macqueen's Bustard (tick and pix)
Greater Hoopoe Lark (tick and pix)
4 spp Sandgrouse (ticks and pix) - I can't separate these out nor remove any from the cut!
Eastern Imperial Eagle (tick and pix)
Black Woodpecker (views)

First three Israel, last two Hungary.

Pretty decent really, no complaints. Other wildlife included Cardinal and Eastern Festoon butterflies, Scarlet Darter (in Hungary, not Dorset, sadly), Nubian Ibex, Golden Jackal at last, European Souslik. Lots more that doesn't make the cut, including Red-flanked Bluetail: who'd have thought that twenty years ago?

John

1. Corncrake (most likely juvenile from 2nd brood) from my nettles on October 3rd.
2. Twite 15 birds in my kale crop.
3. breeding pair chough in my nest box, sadly failed.
4. goshawk (barbate Spain).
5. Northern Bald Ibis (Barbate Spain).

I'm cutting edges here, but here we go...

1) All Cuban birds from my trip at February
2) 300 000 Barnacles (+ couple of GWFG, Beanies and Swans + 1 Brent) in Elimäki, South-East Finland at October. About a 1/3 of the world's Barnacle population in one flooding field.
3) Pack of Wild Boars in Muhu, Estonia
4) Penduline tit in Saaremaa, Estonia
5) First time I have seen Red Crossbills on my garden.

Some other day, I may say 3 -5 something different.

With no decent self-finds in 2017 (at least nothing rarer than cattle egret) I'll go with my 5 British ticks:

Red-winged blackbird
Elegant tern (seen previously in Ireland)
Amur falcon
American redstart
Two-barred (greenish) warbler

10 new birds in Spain (+ lynx) were the other major highlight!

1. Peafowl - India. I know, but there's something special about seeing wild ones.
2. Malabar Grey Hornbill - India. I like Hornbills.
3. Greater Flamingo - Lake Divariou, Greece. Possibly the perfect image, water like a mirror, beautiful birds and a bright blue sky.
4. Little Owl - Greece. My ultimate bogey bird, seriously!
5. Darter - India. For posing nicely for pictures.

Bearing in mind there is still some of 2017 left, my top 5 are:

1) Eastern black redstart, Skinningrove, Cleveland - great views of a superb little bird, so good I went back twice
2) Iceland gull, Newton flashes, Low Newton by the Sea, Northumberland - a previously glaring omission from my life list, and an adult in summer plumage too
3) red-necked phalarope, Druridge Pools, Northumberland - another great little bird, and interesting to watch feeding commensally with shovelers
4) black tern, Potteric Carr, Yorkshire - it's been a long time since I've seen a marsh tern of any description, so this was satisfying
5) grey phalarope, South Shields, South Tyneside - maybe not up to the experience of seeing one on the open ocean off Sagres in 2016, but the close-up views were stunning

Highly commended but didn't quite make the cut: water rail (Blacktoft Sands and Leighton Moss); slender-billed gull, Audouin's gull, sooty shearwater (Algarve); bee-eater (Notts. and Northd.); red-necked grebe (Linton Ponds).

Well Rich, you got me thinking about this one too. There have been a few lifers but not necessarily all them get onto the top 5 list. Like you there are some that just have to make the cut for being bogies, just simply stunning or giving me the most pleasure with their behaviour.

Here goes for what its worth (in no particular order as that would be far too difficult

1 White billed diver in Lincolnshire. views at less than 5M gobsmacking

2 Eastern black redstart in Northumberland. went up there for the pacific diver but this little belter was the star turn of the day. again extreme close ups of a very obliging and stunning little bird

3 White tailed eagle (adult) on Mull barely metres overhead from the boat before climbing to circle with 2 goldies

4 red neck and grey pharalope on the same day. both lifers and all time bogies. (wouldn't want to estimate the time, mileage and frustration chasing after these over the years)

5 2 Goldcrests flitting around my garden last weekend, flycatching and even visiting the feeders. One of them even settled briefly on the jasmine climbing up the wall right next to the kitchen window. Awesome. The sheer cuteness made OH come over all unnecessary. sat watching them for ages

On top of this there several lifers including bee-eaters (would have made the cut but for the goldcrests), blue rock thrush (seen in terrible weather), and various others. There are honorable mentions too for a hoopoe in a front garden in Loughborough, a flock of 150 waxwings, Crested tit in a blizzard at Loch Garten, puffins coming and going from their burrows 6 feet away on Treshnish isles (same trip as the WTE).

It goes to prove that this little hobby (obsession?) of ours is never dull and always full of surprises.

I will be putting my 2018 hit list together over the xmas break (that's another whole thread) but am sure by the end of the year my top five will look nothing like it. Not unless I finally catch up with that pesky LSW.

Belgium:
1. Long-tailed Shrike
2. Black-winged Kite
3. Stone Curlew
4. Pine Bunting
5. River Warbler

Abroad:
1. Recurve-billed Bushbird
2. Pale-faced bare-eye
3. Harlequin Antbird
4. White-breasted Antbird
5. Black-bellied Gnateater

No big finds for me this year, so my top five would have to be more general experiences. In reverse order:

5. Big falls of common migrants on Sanday in October, including redstarts, spotted flycatchers, reed warblers, phylloscs etc. Almost making up for the lack of rarities!

4. A Cory's shearwater past my local patch on August 23rd. A patch tick, Scottish rarity, and shared with friends

3. Superb seawatching on Ouessant in early September. On at least one occasion I had five species of shearwater in the field of view. Being based in NE Scotland, the big shears and Balearics were great to see in such good numbers.

2. Spending quality time with Siberian chiffchaffs. Over the winter there were at least six birds on my local patch, some of which remained into April. It was brilliant recording calls and songs, and getting to grips with these great birds. As an aside, does anyone know of any bigger UK wintering aggregations than this?

1. Sanday in Spring. I spent five weeks on Sanday in Spring doing breeding wader and seabird surveys. With barely a rainy day during that period, I had a pretty idyllic trip to this beautiful island, enhanced by some decent finds such as 2 RBflycatcher, grey-headed wagtail, green-winged teal, garganeys, red-backed shrikes, and more, and jamming in on an Eastern Subalpine warbler (found by my friend who was standing next to me!)

A tough job as you say Rich!

Though it means omitting amongst others Long-tailed Duck (a real rarity here), a pair of Eastern Imperial Eagles circling over the Sakar Hills, a self-found (and local) Spotted Crake, Flamingo and patch tick Black and Grey-headed Woodpeckers, I've gone for:

1) Red-breasted Goose - That's to say 15,000 of them roosting on Durankulak Lake then taking off in waves as Dawn approached! An incredible experience!

2) Griffon Vulture - 75 or 80 feasting on a carcass as we watched from my friend's new photo hide in the Rhodopes. 50 or so Ravens provided the supporting cast.

3) Red-necked Grebe - On the Danube Delta in Romania. Occasionally seen here in Winter but these were in all their Summer glory!

4) (Eastern) Subalpine Warbler - In the Rhodopes again. We were watching a Western Rock Nuthatch flying too and fro from its nest when this handsome chap appeared about fifteen feet behind us singing like billy-o - stunning!

5) Chukar Partridge - At the same spot as the Subalpine the next day, calling from the clifftop.

Chris

After some thought, I'd go for:

1. Pale-winged Trumpeter – the most overwhelming overall experience of the year, thanks to the shocking peculiarity of the birds themselves, and my headspace at the time. I bumped into a party of them on a forested ridge in Peru, whist alone, dripping with sweat, and worried that I'd lost the rather vague trail I was on. They were very obliging, allowing me to follow them around a bit, and they were considerably bigger and brighter than I'd imagined they'd be. A new family for me, and a big thanks to them for being so weird.

2. Humboldt Penguin – for a rather strange reason. My calculations at the time of the sighting put this species as marking the point when I'd achieved my lifetime's ambition, after 40+ years of birding, of finally seeing half the world's described bird species. A modest ambition considering that last year it was proved that this is doable in a mere 8 months these days! At least I can console myself that all but a few of them were found and identified myself ,without playback, mostly whilst travelling on the cheap with non-birding companions. When I first got my hands on a Peter's Checklist, aged about 13, I had no idea it was even remotely possible to see half the world's birds in a lifetime. How things have changed, and how different the expectations must be for anyone starting this hobby today. That penguin was food for thought for me, as I looked back on this lifetime's hobby.

3. Blue & Yellow Macaw – say no more! I've had a softspot for big macaws since seeing my first Scarlets nearly 20 years ago. Blue & Yellow was a long time coming since Birdworld as a kid, but worth the wait, and the best of the 4 lifer macaws I've had the privilege of seeing this year . Also, son Ronnie has a big fluffy one called Frere Jaques, which is what we call the species.

4. Great Shearwater – or more specifically the 3rd of 3 Great Shearwaters seen on a morning seawatch off Porthgwarra this year. The 3rd one was a bigger buzz because the first two were spotted by other seawatchers first. Great Shear was easily my biggest bogey, being seen in my own home country every year, often in 1000s, and it's taken this long for me to get round to seeing one. For me it knocked spots off the Wilson's Petrels also seen that day! I guess that's down to me not twitching any more, as I find birding in the UK generally increasingly uninspiring, in our increasingly manicured landscape of traffic jams with less and less places to park up overnight.

5. A toss up between a few things that caused the most excitement when they popped up in front of me. Narrowing it down I can't decide between a Swainson's Warbler in Mexico, the first of 2 Sungrebes seen this year, and the Tree Pipit on my local patch in Bristol.

I'm sort of glad everyone's finding it as difficult as I did. Can't believe I had to leave out my first Waxwings, along with Red-necked and Grey Phalaropes!!

Rich

Subject to change over the next week:-

Britain
1. American Redstart - thirty years of twitching hurt finally avenged - http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S39096468

2. Red-winged Blackbird - unexpected first for Britain in a cracking location and got to stay overnight to make a trip of it - http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S36602288

3. Eastern Orphean Warbler - not great views and purely on the basis that it was a first and some twitching instincts got me a tick - not sure how long it will last as a blocker - some fall straight away (getting to the Cape Clear Blue-winged Warbler the first day was unblocked the next day), some fall years later (getting to the Fair Isle Thick-billed Warbler the first day was unblocked a few years later) and some will probably fall next year (getting to the Skelberry Caspian Plover looks like a decent move 21 years later but won't last) - http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S39935115

4. White-billed Diver - Orkney - cracking species and cracking views - http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S36603906

5. Long-tailed Skua - Northumberland - cracking species and cracking views - http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S39865635

Not making the selection were Amur Falcon (Britain & Ireland tick), Yellow Warbler and Cackling Goose (both British ticks), Osprey (found the bird locally and decent photographic opportunity) & Peregrines (quality time with birds in Bristol City Centre).

Abroad
Only one trip abroad being Kuwait in April:-
1. Socotra Cormorant - tick - one of the two main targets of the trip and cracking views out in the Gulf - http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S36020056 & http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S36020032

2. Basra Reed Warbler - tick - the other main target - not photographed & twitched but still a huge relief after numerous Great Reed & Reed Warblers - http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S36019903

3. Bridled Terns - my first Bridleds since the Cemlyn bird, delightfully common & stunning views against a glassy Gulf on a still day - http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S36020078

4. Hypocolius - always good fun & pleasantly common on the trip with some good views - http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S36019919

5. Montagu's Harrier - a superb encounter with a female engaged in some nest-robbing was a unique opportunity - http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S36019919

Almost making the selection were a showy Jack Snipe, Red-necked Phalaropes out in the Gulf on the pelagic and the other WP ticks being White-cheeked Tern, Ruppell's Weaver, Common Babbler & Hume's Whitethroat.

All the best

Paul

In chronological order

1. Dusky Thrush, Derbyshire - a "tick" in 2016 but superb, close, views in January
2. Rock Thrush, St Martin’s, Scilly - sat out beautifully in the spring sunshine *
3. Black-billed Cuckoo, Mainland, Shetland - remarkable bird seen in company with some famous British birders *
4. Cliff Swallow, Tresco, Scilly - took a long time to connect with this rascal but after a merry dance it finally showed very well *
5. Eastern Olivaceous Warbler, St Agnes, Scilly - totally unexpected *

* = UK life bird

Honourable mentions to
Siberian Thrush, Unst, Shetland
Yellow-breasted Bunting, Out Skerries, Shetland
Cedar Waxwing, St Agnes, Scilly

Mike C said:

In chronological order

5. Eastern Olivaceous Warbler, St Agnes, Scilly - totally unexpected

Click to expand...

You've done that on purpose!!

Mike C said:

Sorry, I didn’t mean to give the impression I didn’t know what I’d seen.
It was more an expression of an extreme rarity, regardless of the actual species.
It was fabulous, either way, and very instructive

ttfn

Click to expand...

More seriously cracking list. A number where I am decidedly jealous.

All the best

1. Black-backed Oriole
My only lifer of the year. It probably won’t be accepted by the ABA checklist committee, but it was a great bird to see, and I’m counting it on my personal list.

2. Brant
A West Virginia and Preston County lifer. It was especially exciting because it was a county lifer (my only one of the year) and because these sea geese are extremely rare in the high mountains of West Virginia.

3. Shiny Cowbird
An ABA Area lifer. I made the seven-hour round trip to Bethesda, Maryland to see this Neotropical species that had been coming to a feeder.

4. American Avocet
A West Virginia lifer.

5. Laughing Gull
A West Virginia lifer.

Dave