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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

2017 Western Palearctic Big Year (2 Viewers)

I agree, and my first bird of the year would probably have been the Sudan Golden Sparrow, if it is still in the Canaries. The problem is, unless you have very deep pockets, it isn't very affordable to do a fully flexible WP big year based around vagrants. Just think how much more expensive it would be to be constantly buying last minute flight tickets.

I completely agree. Complete last Minute rarity chasing as they Do it in the US is very expensive and certain trips have to be planned in advance. But I think the itinerary is improvable and the Sweden Denmark germany could be a nice road Trip 8-P
 
I completely agree. Complete last Minute rarity chasing as they Do it in the US is very expensive and certain trips have to be planned in advance. But I think the itinerary is improvable and the Sweden Denmark germany could be a nice road Trip 8-P

What they do in the US is probably cheap compared to what it would cost in Europe/WP to do the same. Domestic flights in US are cheap compared to some European flights.
And in Europe a lot rareties show up in very hard to reach or time consuming sites, so that you might not even be able to get all the cat 1/2/3 birds if you do the rareties chasing without a planned itinerary around the WP.
 
hah...you guys don't have to worry about spending a week or more on Adak hoping the bird gods smile down upon you...you have it easy.

Also I assume pelagics would be less a big deal to worry about? I would think you could get most of the regular/semi-expected pelagics in a few trips, versus the ABA, where we have two oceans with significant latitudinal differences in marine birds. Plus we now have Hawaii...
 
hah...you guys don't have to worry about spending a week or more on Adak hoping the bird gods smile down upon you...you have it easy.

Also I assume pelagics would be less a big deal to worry about? I would think you could get most of the regular/semi-expected pelagics in a few trips, versus the ABA, where we have two oceans with significant latitudinal differences in marine birds. Plus we now have Hawaii...

Only Adak to worry about, not a zillion tiny isles spread all over where stuff shows up. Imaging you just arrived on Helgoland for a bird and a beep comes in with some other bird in Grimsby, Fair isle or somewhere in the Canaries...
For pelagics you might be right, though maybe a lot is simply missed of which passes around the WP Isles...
 
Moved forward to 86:-
Category 1 - 67 species
Category 2 - 14 species
Category 3 - 4 species (White-tailed Lapwing, Hypocolius, Black-throated Thrush & Bank Myna)
Category 5 - 1 species (Crested Honey Buzzard)

Red-tailed Wheatear the most useful bird of the day.

All the best
 
What they do in the US is probably cheap compared to what it would cost in Europe/WP to do the same. Domestic flights in US are cheap compared to some European flights.
And in Europe a lot rareties show up in very hard to reach or time consuming sites, so that you might not even be able to get all the cat 1/2/3 birds if you do the rareties chasing without a planned itinerary around the WP.

The itinerary seems odd in some respects to me in terms of the locations, timing and the duration of some trips. I would have started the year visiting more than one country in January but also allowing around ten days for twitching.

We don't know what the current ABA record holder has spent but we know the tale of the tape of the runner up:-
http://olafsbigyear.blogspot.co.uk/

Miles driven: 46,735
Flight Miles: 253,800
$ spent on year: 95,200
Miles on ATV/ scooter: 475
Flight segments: 246
Different Airports: 71
Hours at sea: 284
Miles walked: 545
Miles walked in showshoes: 4
Miles biked: 12
Nights slept in car: 12
Night slept in airplane: 18
Nights slept in airport: 3

A WP yearlist is very easy in comparison.

All the best
 
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I'm not sure that can be generalized as easily as this is the very first try for a WP Big Year. In following years vagrants will have to be chased more vigorously and it will become much more expensive
 
I'm not sure that can be generalized as easily as this is the very first try for a WP Big Year. In following years vagrants will have to be chased more vigorously and it will become much more expensive

Maffong

It is not a generalisation.

Most WP listers have worked out what are the optimum times for cleaning up the trickier WP species even if very few have done all the trips.

17 days is a very long trip for Kuwait and early January is a good time to clear up lingering rarities as well a good time for at least one other trip.

All the best
 
Dunno, there's a whole load of Aleutian islands, plus several Pribilofs, St Matthew, Nunivak, St Lawrence, and Little Diomede . . .

yeah...Imagine being on an island like adak with limited air service, only to find out that Gambell had an amazing run of rarities. It might be 3 days or more before you can even get over there. Still say you guys have it way easier :p
 
Don't get me wrong the WP is going to be just as challenging as the ABA. One thing that seems problematic might be access. Seems like there are a lot of regions that are probably no go do to political instability. The ABA might have a few places hard to get to, but that is only from a logistic viewpoint.

How stable is the WP boundaries? That would be the other troublesome spot I imagine.
 
A WP yearlist is very easy in comparison.

I'm not so sure about that Paul - it comes with its own challenges; different languages, cross-border issues, passport and visa issues, currency differences, unstable political areas, not to mention the huge expense of travel (which is very high in Europe compared to USA).
 
The travel expenses in most parts are not higher than in the US, just some remote areas require more expenses but that is the same in Alaska. A flight from Düsseldorf to Madrid tomorrow would cost me 60€ which is not too expensive I guess.

I agree that certain trips have to be planned in advance e.g. Kuwait, Western Sahara, Ural, Azores.
And if you want to travel around and see all breeding species in the WP, the itinerary is probably fine. If you go for a Big Year with rarities etc. especially the time spend in some locations seems very odd for me. Of course you can not get any rarity which is going to be observed in the WP but especially in the first days of January, you could have planned for an easy catchup in Northern and Central Europe.

Some examples are 17 days Kuwait, going to Svalbard(I thought this is very expensive and you do it for 2-3 species) and the odd 5 days on Iceland and 10 Days on the canaries. ( both locations I personally would have gone to get a rarity and cleanup the fairly easy go to species).

I think they will be going to beat the old record anyway but I guess if they stick to the itinerary, there is room for improvement for future WP Big Year attempts.

What I agree is the political insecureness in some areas of the WP, which are unaceesible e.g. most of Mauritania, Algeria, N-Chad and of Course Syria and Iraq. Turkish SE is also hard at the moment I guess. These are problems ABA Listers do not face. But I disagree in the accessability of certain Islands and expenses you have to take.
If you are in Alaska and a rarity shows up in Florida you have to deal with it and it will be the same, when you are on the Azores and Asian Vagrants crush into the Shetlands and Helgoland. Or even better you are on Corvo and the good Stuff is at Sao Miguel or Flores.
You always have to commit on certain times of the year and try to be at the right spot at the right time.
 
The travel expenses in most parts are not higher than in the US, just some remote areas require more expenses but that is the same in Alaska. A flight from Düsseldorf to Madrid tomorrow would cost me 60€ which is not too expensive I guess.

Ah, looks like classic rip-off Britain at work here: UK people just aren't used to this sort of reasonable behaviour. I just checked "flight newcastle madrid tomorrow" (similar distance, from a similar-sized regional city), and got £127, which is about €140-ish. More than double, for effectively the same.

Edit: and it is of corse just the same with other forms of transport, like rail. Really shocking:
 

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Maffong

It is not a generalisation.

Most WP listers have worked out what are the optimum times for cleaning up the trickier WP species even if very few have done all the trips.

17 days is a very long trip for Kuwait and early January is a good time to clear up lingering rarities as well a good time for at least one other trip.

All the best

I wrote my response late in the evening on my phone, which I guess caused the misunderstanding. I completely agree, that some of their choices are very interesting... However I imagine they are trying too keep their expenses for the Big Year low and won't spend hundreds of thousands on it.

With a preplanned itinerary, costs will be much lower this year than for possible future attempts, when more time is used for twitching. Such a WP Big Year would be just as challenging or maybe even more challenging than an ABA Big Year.

Maffong
 
Ah, looks like classic rip-off Britain at work here: UK people just aren't used to this sort of reasonable behaviour. I just checked "flight newcastle madrid tomorrow" (similar distance, from a similar-sized regional city), and got £127, which is about €140-ish. More than double, for effectively the same.

Edit: and it is of corse just the same with other forms of transport, like rail. Really shocking:

Funny, I just plugged Newcastle to Madrid into Skyscanner for tomorrow and it shows the cheapest fare as £53, which is €62. London to Madrid is £28, or €33.
 
Funny, I just plugged Newcastle to Madrid into Skyscanner for tomorrow and it shows the cheapest fare as £53, which is €62. London to Madrid is £28, or €33.

Perhaps cutting the price at the last moment to fill an empty seat or two?
 
Perhaps cutting the price at the last moment to fill an empty seat or two?

Nope. Flights on the day after tomorrow are even cheaper (£43 from Newcastle).

We do get ripped-off in Britain for many things, but airfares aren't one of them.
 
They got Indian Roller.
Can you code that one, Paul? ;-)
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...03901275.1073741832.1626408760&type=3&theater
(link to Facebook picture potentially not visible to anyone except friends of people tagged + the author of the message)

I coded as Category 5 ie annually available vagrant though only after a discussion with a better-informed friend (who has a far larger WP List) as to whether it should be Category 3 - restricted range species. My feeling is that it is trickier than it used to be so I resisted downgrading it - I dipped! - but mid-November to end of January is the peak time to see it in Kuwait.

http://www.netfugl.dk/ranking.php?id=wp&mode=hhhb&species_id=499

Edit - Just checked. The Birds of the State of Kuwait lists it as 'Scarce disperser in autumn, winter and spring'.

The other stars of the day are Common Babbler and Red-wattled Lapwing - so three species on me now for the WP....... Crested Honey Buzzard, Indian Roller & Common Babbler.

Now 93 species:-
Category 1 - 69 species
Category 2 - 17 species
Category 3 - 5 species (White-tailed Lapwing, Hypocolius, Black-throated Thrush & Bank Myna & Common Babbler)
Category 5 - 2 species (Crested Honey Buzzard & Indian Roller)

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

All the best

Paul
 

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