Garden/Yard List 2020 (1 Viewer)

[AGPank]

2020 is the first year in a new house. Highlights for the year:
Swallow tail kite flying over
Osprey flying over
Visit from broad wing hawk
Great egret
Ibis
Painted bunting
Pileated woodpecker

Typical feeder / visitors are always welcomed.

• cardinals
• Muscovy ducks
• blue jay
• mockingbird
• grackle
• doves ( collared, white wing, zenaida)
• some warblers showed up in the hedges this winter, but I haven’t identified them
• starling
• swallows (haven’t identified which ones)
• turkey and black vultures flying around

 

[KenM]

Presume your location is Florida or thereabouts AG?

Cheers

 

[AGPank]

Presume your location is Florida or thereabouts AG?

Cheers

Yes, just moved to Weston, west of Fort Lauderdale

 

[KenM]

Some great birds there AG! Envy the Painted Bunting, high on my hit list amongst others, perhaps my next trip....Covid willing. 👍

 

[Steve Lister]

A bit of snow this morning, everything white-over. So hopefully a bit of cold weather movement might ensue - I still need Golden Plover for a garden year tick, not too much to ask.

 

[Euan Buchan]

A Siskin dropped by sadly didn’t get a photo but that was my first Siskin in the garden.

 

[Richard Prior]

Nice one Euan! Like Steve, I’ve been hoping for something new to turn up with this current cold spell to get me to the magic 90 total for the year! So it was with mixed feelings that I saw our first Alpine Accentor of 2020 away from the mountain slopes this afternoon, just 50m from the garden as I strolled up the road after retrieving the mail from our box at the bottom of the track to the house. It landed in a tree top which I know is visible from the veg garden so I ran back there to hopefully add it to the 2020 Garden List but surprise surprise, it was no longer there by the time I’d scrambled up the bank in the snow 😩It’s probably hanging around the farm a bit further up the road so tomorrow I’ll be on red alert in the hope of it popping in to see us🤞

 

[Jay87]

Been hit & miss on the feeders lately but plenty of birds around..Today’s list goldfinch,bullfinch,greenfinch,great tit,blue tit,mistle thrush,redwing,blackbird,dunnock,carrion crow,wood pidgeons,great spotted woodpecker,nuthatch,chaffinch,Reed buntings,common buzzard,magpie,

 

[Steve Lister]

Just one day left, and moving into Tier 4 of the English Covid regulations. That means at least two weeks of mainly home-based birding so at least should get a good start to next year's garden list.

 

[Warixenjalka]

November went without new garden visitors, but December 8th quick visit by:

#87. Common Treecreeper - and I haven't seen it since that. Last time CT visited in my garden at 2017.

I'm guessing I don't get more garden ticks for 2020. This had been very good year and I did a new garden record. The old record was broken by as many as 11 species! 😁

Happy new year!

 

[KenM]

November went without new garden visitors, but December 8th quick visit by:

#87. Common Treecreeper - and I haven't seen it since that. Last time CT visited in my garden at 2017.

I'm guessing I don't get more garden ticks for 2020. This had been very good year and I did a new garden record. The old record was broken by as many as 11 species! 😁

Happy new year!

Snap! on the uncommon Treecreeper Wari and a Happy New Year! 😄👍

 

[Paul Chapman]

Final tally for 2020 was 68 species of which 52 were photographed and four were heard only. Highlight was really the perched Tree Pipit on 18th April though Common Scoter and Mediterranean Gull were close behind with Oystercatcher, Grey Plover and four Whimbrel pleasing. Bird days for ‘raptors’ - 131 Sparrowhawk, 114 Peregrine, 73 Buzzard, 42 Raven, 11 Kestrel, 5 Red Kite and 2 Hobby. Bird days for ‘hirundines’ – 382 Swallow, 278 House Martin, 167 Swift and 55 Sand Martin. Other notable ‘regulars’ – 26 Little Egret and 17 Goosander.

Final list with bird day totals for all bar the most regular:-
1. Greylag Goose - 3 (25th March & 28th October)
2. Canada Goose* - 69
3. Mute Swan* - 5
4. Shelduck - 8
5. Mandarin* - 2 (28th March & 2nd April)
6. Mallard
7. Common Scoter* - 1 (heard only on 2nd April)
8. Goosander - 17
9. Feral Pigeon
10. Stock Dove* - 33
11. Common Woodpigeon
12. Collared Dove
13. Swift - 167
14. Moorhen - 68
15. Oystercatcher* - 1 (28th July)
16. Grey Plover* - 1 heard only (25th April)
17. Lapwing - 8
18. Whimbrel - 4 (30th April)
19. Black-headed Gull
20. Mediterranean Gull - 1 (15th November)
21. Common Gull - 16
22. Herring Gull
23. Lesser Black-backed Gull
24. Cormorant - 21
25. Grey Heron - 26
26. Little Egret - 26
27. Sparrowhawk - 131
28. Red Kite - 5 (26th March to 4th June)
29. Buzzard - 73
30. Great Spotted Woodpecker - 7
31. Green Woodpecker* - 2 (heard only on 5th April & 7th April)
32. Kestrel - 11
33. Hobby* - 2 (23rd April & 12th May)
34. Peregrine - 114
35. Jay - 15
36. Magpie
37. Jackdaw
38. Rook - 20
39. Carrion Crow
40. Raven - 42
41. Coal Tit - 9
42. Blue Tit
43. Great Tit
44. Reed Warbler* - 4 (heard only)
45. Sand Martin - 55
46. Swallow - 382
47. House Martin - 278
48. Willow Warbler - 8
49. Chiffchaff* - 3
50. Long-tailed Tit
51. Blackcap* - 8
52. Wren* - 28
53. Starling
54. Mistle Thrush* - 1 (24th April)
55. Song Thrush - 13
56. Redwing - 20
57. Blackbird
58. Fieldfare* - 4 (6th November & 23rd November)
59. Robin
60. Dunnock - 72
61. House Sparrow
62. Grey Wagtail - 18
63. Pied Wagtail - 67
64. Meadow Pipit* - 34
65. Tree Pipit - 1 (18th April)
66. Chaffinch - 45
67. Greenfinch - 41
68. Goldfinch

*unphotographed.

No disrespect intended to the regulars on here but I sincerely hope to spend less time in the garden in 2021 albeit with the experience gained, I may well be able to beat this year’s total!

A few pics added - Tree Pipit, Med Gull, Willow Warbler, Whimbrel & the regular adult female Peregrine.

Happy New Year All

Paul

 

[birdmeister]

Well, I guess now is as good a time as any to get in my year-end "report" as well.

It really was an unbelievable year in the yard birding-wise! My final species tally for the year was 121, shattering any records! The three previous years, my best from the yard before, yielded 88 (2019), 69 (2018), and 70 (2017) species.

Here's what the previous years have looked like in terms of adding new yard birds (not totally accurate but very close, given that I really started eBirding my sightings only in 2016 after 14 years here):

2016 - 15 additions
2017 - 7 additions
2018 - 5 additions
2019 - 11 additions
2020 - 22 additions!

It's hard to put together a top 10 in such a banner year, but a few things stand out to me. I'll try to rank them in my favorite order:

1. Black-bellied Plover (quite a rare bird, flock of 35 seen on their way from the Delaware Bay)
2. American Bittern (often very tricky to find, this was a sunset flyover migrant)
3. Evening Grosbeak (very rare, part of a huge finch irruption)
4. Wilson's Snipe (nearly unheard of as a flyover yard bird)
5. Dickcissel (fairly rare)
6. Greater Yellowlegs (who doesn't love migrating shorebirds from the yard?)
7. Solitary Sandpiper (same as yellowlegs, but a great season total of 14)
8. Bay-breasted Warbler (show-stopping adult male, enough said)
9. Purple Finch (huge irruption, season total of 432 including a 1-day county record of 157!)
10. I'm going to bend the rules and tie between Broad-winged Hawk (marvelous spring total of 641, with a 1-day high of 308) and Common Nighthawk (great spring total of 186, including 61 on one night)

Other favorite moments included:

4,200+ unidentified Delaware Bay shorebirds interacting with a monstrous thunderstorm thousands of feet up in June!

A parade of migrant Bald Eagles in May that combined with residents for a county record 21!

Morning liftoffs of loons, cormorants, raptors, and more in April and May

Spring hawk watching in general, with great numbers for somewhat limited hours



I can't imagine next year topping this, as I would just as happily head to the local reservoir in the mornings for better views and possible higher numbers of these migrants. A huge miss this year was the nighttime thrush migration, as I could have easily gotten 3-5 species if I had just been a bit less lazy and woken up extra early.

I'd be happy with 100 yard birds in most years, I think. Huge thanks to all of you folks for posting your updates, too! They were riveting reads.

All the best for everyone to survive whatever 2021 brings.

 

[Steve Lister]

Just put my last garden list onto eBird and that makes 291 for the year, out of a total of 540 lists I entered nationally. That's probably about 500 hours watching from the garden in this Covid-ruined year.

Best wishes to all garden listers for 2021.

 

[KenM]

Some impressive stats coming through, in what has been a remarkable year for Garden Listing, no doubt others will follow.
With no two gardens being the same- elevation, location, the shrubs, trees, landscape inside and out, not to mention the hours employed before and after the restrictions, all contributing not just to the totals, but the incidence of regular/scarce/rare species as well.

With all participants trying to improve their respective totals on previous years, I was no exception to this objective, hoping to raise the bar on last years 87 going for 90 if possible.....amazingly this was achieved by the end of August! It was then that the thrust of the objective changed with the incidence of scarce migrants taking over from the bottom line total. Officially I finished two short of triple digits however unofficially, I accrued a number of sps that should have got me over the finishing line given better views.

The jaw-droppers were L.S.Woodpecker (imaged), 33 Brent Geese high and over East (imaged), Male Marsh Harrier sky-dancing over gardens (imaged),
3 Woodlarks interacting and calling, Northern Wheatear, Honey Buzzard, Melodious Warbler in my neighbour's garden and regrettably not imaged as was my third ever Yellow-browed Warbler (don't feel quite so bad about that as the previous two were) and lest I forget Moorhen (imaged)

Regarding bird days of passage warblers between July-Sep- Chiffchaff (c90), Willow Warbler (c38) these two species are given as circa, due to them both occurring frequently) and as such, I may have double counted on occasion, although I was fairly rigorous when birds were present between Dawn and Dusk on a given day, mostly hours apart and entering the garden from the North and exiting to the South, Lesser Whitethroat (3), Common Whitethroat (5), Garden Warbler (15), Reed Warbler (9), Melodious Warbler (1), Yellow-browed Warbler (1), Tristis type CC (2), Nightingale (1) my 3rd in 37 years, Spotted Flycatcher (3), Pied Flycatcher (3) and Common Redstart (1), all imaged apart from YBW, Tristis, Pied Fly, Melodious and Nightingale, in all, totalling 172 migrant bird days of 13 species over 92 days.
With regard to the two flycatcher species and Common Redstart they are extremely scarce normally, averaging perhaps just one every couple of years. Clearly blanket coverage during this lock down (Dawn-Dusk) has been the difference not to mention the North-South funnel effect at the forest's narrowest point.

That's enough for one year! and a Happy New Year to all...going forward. 👍