Young Birder (8 Viewers)

[Mari E]

Had a great holiday in Wales - we were based in Marloes and I went to my first ever seabird colony - Skomer. I think I've about a dozen lifers but I'll report everything tomorrow

 

[Mari E]

Lifers in capital

131) WHIMBREL
132) SANDERLING
133) Gannet
134) RAZORBILL
135) GUILLIMOT
136) Stonechat
137) PUFFIN
138) Wheatear
139) FULMAR
140) Kittiwake
141) LITTLE OWL
142) CHOUGH
143) SHAG
144) MANX SHEARWATER
145) Rock pipit

Dipped on dipper and short eared owl but overall great birding

 

[timmyjones]

Birding recently involved dipping Night Heron back home, day out to the Moors and a trip up to Northumberland, this resulted in 6 year ticks and 1 lifer

192 Common Tern
193 Ring Ouzel
194 Sandwich Tern
195 Sanderling
196 Roseate Tern
197 Puffin
198 Stonechat

 

[BirdPics]

106) Grey Wagtail
107) Kingfisher

 

[Jonny721]

1st) Shantanu (Mumbai, India) - 323 species
2nd) FoghornKinghorn (Durham, GB) - 225 species
3rd) Birding Maniac (Durham, GB) - 213 species
4th) Timmyjones (Yorkshire, GB) - 198 species
5th) Joshua-B (Australia) - 195 species
6th) Joseph N (Aberdeenshire, GB) - 183 species
7th) Jonny721 (Lancashire, GB) - 180 species
8th) Ash1456 (Cornwall, GB) - 179 species
9th) Simmojunior (London, GB) - 163 species
10th) nrg800 (Australia) - 155 species
11th) ***DIJ*** (Lincolnshire, GB) - 152 species
12th) Mari E (Oxford, GB) - 145 species
13th) Midlands Birder (Midlands, GB) - 143 species
14th) Knotsbirder (Nottinghamshire, GB) - 140 species
15th) Ausmar (Malta) - 137 species
16th) Adin 92 (Malta) - 136 species
16th) Birdermoose (Essex, GB) - 136 species
18th) Halcon (Spain) - 135 species
19th) Shrikebirder (London, GB) - 124 species
20th) Jamesevry (Somerset, GB) - 114 species
21st) Birdpics (Essex, GB) - 107 species
22nd) Borofan (Cleveland, GB) - 102 species
23rd) Nature_Lover (Durham, GB) - 77 species
24th) CreamColouredCourser (Wales, GB) - 67 species
25th) Skylark25 (Malta) - 54 species
26th) WildlifeLove (Essex, GB) - 52 species
27th) Maltese Falcon (Malta) - 44 species
28th) Andrewj123 (Bedfordshire, GB) - 35 species

 

[FoghornKinghorn]

225 - Surf Scoter - Blackhall Rocks, Durham

Stunning male Surf Scoter. Superb! This was the first available twitchable bird ever in Durham. A great bird to see.

Golden Pheasant is not countable as cat C on BOU. Well not the birds I saw. However this may change with research. So that's why is down to 225.

 

[Northern123]

Friday 27th May
210 - Woodlark - undisclosed site, Suffolk
211 - Hobby - Lakenheath Fen RSPB, Suffolk
212 - Golden Oriole - Lakenheath Fen RSPB, Suffolk
213 - Red-necked Phalarope - Frampton Marsh RSPB, Lincolnshire

Saturday 28th of May
214 - Dartford Warbler - Dunwich Heath, Suffolk
215 - Kingfisher - Minsmere RSPB, Suffolk
216 - Purple Heron - Minsmere RSPB, Suffolk
217 - Turtle Dove - Minsmere RSPB (near), Suffolk
218 - Montagu's Harrier - undisclosed site, Norfolk

Sunday 29th of May
219 - Curlew Sandpiper - Titchwell RSPB, Norfolk
220 - Honey Buzzard - Great Ryburgh, Norfolk
221 - Spotted Flycatcher - Sculthorpe Moor, Norfolk
222 - Golden Pheasant - Sculthorpe Moor, Norfolk
223 - Nightjar - Salthouse Heath, Norfolk

Monday 30th of May
224 - Bearded Tit - Lakenheath Fen RSPB, Suffolk
225 - Terek Sandpiper - Low Hauxley, Northumberland

Another truly spectacular trip to Norfolk with the above bolded birds being lifers. Highlight of Norfolk trip had to be the Golden Oriole; had pretty good views of a bird perched up for about 10 seconds or so. Tried to get my scope set up to look at it but it flew off. Frustrating as I could have just watched it for longer in binoculars but not to worry. Saw another Golden Oriole fly by on Monday at Lakenheath but not as good a view as I had on Friday. Golden Pheasant was another highlight as it was sitting about 12ft in front of me feeding. What a truly stunning bird! Also we traveled to see a Red-necked Phalarope at Frampton Marsh Lincolnshire and then when we went to Welney NWT on Sunday whilst we were there 2 turned up on site!:-O So we had 3 Red-necked Phalaropes, but sadly we dipped out on the Bluethroat.

Finally got home about 6 last night and jumped in the car and went up to Low Hauxley. Got into the hide and no one about and no sign of the bird. Heard a strange wader call and it came and landed on shore opposite the hide! Bird fairly flighty and calling a lot, also gave me the run around but in the end enjoyed some excellent views. I really loved the Terek having missed 2 in Durham in the past 3 years.

Amazing trip and report to follow on my blog soon.

Hi,

Sounds like you had an amazing trip. I was in the area last week as well and saw a lot of the same birds but had no luck with either the orioles or the honey buzzard but did manage to hear the former although it wouldn’t show itself to the masses around (felt like I was on a twitch). I saw the purple heron as well, which was fantastic as it was my only lifer for the trip and I had to wait 7 hours for a 10 second flight view but it was worth it.

I noticed that you had the golden pheasants at Sculthorpe Moor on your list. I don’t know if you are aware, but these birds are not considered to originate from any of the (once?) self-sustaining populations from Wolferton or the Brecks and are believed to have escaped from captivity or been purposefully released and aren’t regarded as countable on lists. Of course what goes on one’s personal list(s) is completely up to the individual but I just thought I’d mention the fact. There is more discussion on these birds and their, supposedly, dubious origins on the following threads if you are interested:

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=163279
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=59348&page=479
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=59348&page=257
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=59348&page=218
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=124727

Although I’m no longer a young birder I am fascinated by the annual competition you have here and it is one of the threads I follow most closely. It’s nice to see young people interested in the hobby, which appears to be dominated by the older generations. Also, although I can drive I live in Central London and don’t have a car and so most of my Birdwatching is limited to places easily accessible by public transport (mainly London Wetland Centre and Rainham Marshes) so I appreciate the frustration of many of you if there is a good bird close by which is (practically) impossible to get to. Having said that most of you seem to do a lot better than I did at your age for seeing lots of decent birds.

 

[Northern123]

225 - Surf Scoter - Blackhall Rocks, Durham

Stunning male Surf Scoter. Superb! This was the first available twitchable bird ever in Durham. A great bird to see.

Golden Pheasant is not countable as cat C on BOU. Well not the birds I saw. However this may change with research. So that's why is down to 225.

Sorry just seen this post, kind of makes my previous post obsolete. Well done on the Surf Scoter - they're beautiful - I saw a drake in Northumberland many years ago and it was stunning.

 

[FoghornKinghorn]

Sorry just seen this post, kind of makes my previous post obsolete. Well done on the Surf Scoter - they're beautiful - I saw a drake in Northumberland many years ago and it was stunning.

No thats fine thanks for the posts. I was looking for some information on the Golden Pheasants at Sculthorpe anyway. Thanks very much!:t:

 

[Joshua-B]

Hopefully twitching the critically endangered Regent Honeyeater on Saturday, plus I should year-tick Swift Parrots! I'm also currently planning a trip out to the mallee in central New South Wales this coming holidays with another teen birder (not on here), so that will be excellent

 

[Halcon]

137 please

 

[Shantanu]

324- Yellow bittern
325- Cinnamon bittern
326- Greater Painted snipe
327- Oriental white-eye (Missed in previous posts pretty common in forests)

 

[birding maniac]

Two big birds for me today on Uist (north)
Great skua
Corncrake
Great skua from the ferry and a stunning corncrake calling pretty much in the open at an undisclosed location. Such a 'wow' moment, one I didn't expect. A lifer too

 

[birding maniac]

Two big birds for me today on Uist (north)
Great skua
Corncrake
Great skua from the ferry and a stunning corncrake calling pretty much in the open at an undisclosed location. Such a 'wow' moment, one I didn't expect. A lifer too

 

[simmojunior]

I saw two year ticks today in North Staffordshire, a superb singing Spotted Flycatcher and a Marsh Tit feeding young. I'm now on 165 for the year.

 

[Joseph N]

Glad to see you are all seeing some good quality birds at the moment. I'm off to Speyside for the next few days, starting tomorrow morning. Tomorrow will see me going to a site in Aberdeenshire for Wood Warbler early morning, then I'll move up to Lochindorb near Grantown in the Speyside area for Black-throated Diver and then hopefully to Loch Ruvthen for breeding Slav Grebe, with the possibility of Golden Eagle around here too. On Sunday I will be climbing up Cairn Gorm for Ptarmigan, Ring Ouzel, Snow Bunting and Dotterel (had the latter this year already), and in the early morning and afterwards I will be spending time in Abernethy Forest/Rothiemurchus looking for the likes of Black Grouse, Capercallie, Crested Tit and the two rarer Crossbill species. There is an American Wigeon at Strathbeg at the moment - if that's still around on Monday I will go for it on the way back. Will hopefully return with between 190-200 species for the year.

Good birding to you all, I will post the year-ticks when I return,

Joseph

 

[Joshua-B]

Great day for me today - I finally bagged a Regent Honeyeater, and what beautiful birds they are! (Photos on blog) Also got 3 other year ticks;

196: Regent Honeyeater
197: White-cheeked Honeyeater
198: Varied Sittella
199: Swift Parrot

I wonder what 200 will be... we're trying for Masked Owl on the Queens Birthday

 

[Nature__lover]

went for walk 5.00am this morning to a local woodland patch! was rewarded with 2 GS woodpeckers, blackcaps, long tailed tits, chiffchaffs and a pair of treecreepers, which were going in and out of their nest, feeding their chicks I presume.
heres a short vid of them http://tinyurl.com/639w9pq

78 blackcap

 

[midlands birder]

Just got back from a holiday in pembrokeshire.
will update list laters but my count for yearticks i think is 15, but not sure on that yet..
MB

 

[midlands birder]

144- Gannet
145- Fulmar
146- Rock Pipit
147- Shag
148 Kittiwake
149- Guilemot
150- Razorbill
151- Chough
152- Turnstone
153- Saderling
154- Ringed Plover
155- Little Egret
156- Manx Shearwater ( 400+ off strumble head)
157- Puffin ( 3 flying west off strumble head)
158- Black Guilemot ( Undisclosed site site)
159- Hobby, On Wales/England Border..
I think thats all of them, but will post again if i forgot anything..
MB