Review of the Birding Year 2024

 Hi all, hoping you had a good Christmas. It's now that time, when you are bored,bloated and defenceless  that I hit you with  my annual review of the Birding year a rollercoaster ride of emotions, tall tales of bravery, heroics,woe and joy, the like of which have  not been  seen since the ones I made up last year!! 😃Accompanied, as always, by my better half, the lovely Margie, who only gets slightly annoyed as I take the 100th picture of the same Wheatear I took a 100 pictures of the previous day and whose excellent landscape pics have graced my blog posts and offered you some relief from the relentless pics of Stonechats, not to mention her pics of "interesting things" that delight and bamboozle all at once😁! Although her obsession with Castles and old ruins does get a bit draining, think we've been to two this year! 😨Though she points out I'm her favourite old ruin so can't complain too much💖💖💓

Not a bad year all in all with some good birds seen. Only one Lifer,😢 probably my own fault with several opportunities missed due to work, laziness and incompetence! The one I did get was the Pied Wheatear at Seaford Head, hopefully will do a bit better in 2025! Total for the year was 210, always good to get over 200!

Pied Wheatear, Seaford Head

Pied Wheatear

We had a couple of trips away this year, the  two weeks in Nairn exploring the Moray coast were fantastic. Superb beaches, with plenty of Birds and with the Cairngorms within easy reach lots of opportunities for some good birding. Possibly the highlight was climbing the mighty Cairn Gorm itself and meeting a flock of Snow Buntings at the top! Though watching 3 Ospreys fishing the surf on Lossiemouth Beach, trips to Troup Head and Loch Ruthven and a couple of close encounters with Red Squirrels were also of note!!

Our exploits on the mountain can be read at the link

Mountaineering

Margie conquering Cairngorm

Snow Bunting

Top of Cairngorm

Me on the top of Cairn Gorm, a miracle of mind over, dodgy,knees,lungs, hips and pretty much the rest of my body!!

Wheatear

Lossiebeach a beautiful place

Osprey

Hardcore Red Squirrel tucking into a skull!☠☠

Me on Roseisle Beach another lovely place

Only my second ever White-billed Diver

Slavonian Grebe, Loch Ruthven

Hooded Crow, you know you are in Scotland proper when you see one of these!

Gannet at Troup Head, have to visit at least one Seabird Colony a year, minimum, it's the law😃!

Tree Sparrow

Yellowhammer

All in all a fantastic two weeks, where the weather was very kind to us!

Couple of links to highlights but pretty much everyday was awesome!

Troup Head

Squirrel and more

We also had a nice trip to Wales, visiting me Dad with a bit of Birding thrown in! 

Chough at South Stack

Red Kite

More pics at the link, this was probably the best day!

Wales

First Sortie of the year was to catch up with the local Waxwings, which were legion last Winter, a contrast to this Winter where they haven't turned up at all so far😢 

Waxwing Hunt

Love a Waxwing or two and these just 3 miles from the house as the Waxwings fly, but they didn't fall for my trap in the garden, ten years in the laying 😢Poxy Blackbirds eating all the bait! Grrr!😁

First proper trip out was to Dungeness which produced the usual good stuff! Will probably be my first trip out in 2025 as well!!! Got all three Divers on my year list which can't be bad!

Black-throated Diver

Great Northern Diver

Red-throated Divers, yeah not quite as cooperative as the others! 😄

Lots of other good stuff seen, lots of Egrets (3 kinds), Peregrine, Marsh Harrier, Beardies, lots of Geese and the good Swans a great trip, Dunge is always great!!

Bearded Tit

See the rest at the link Dungeness

Almost as good was an Owlfest at Elmley, Short-eared, Barn and Little Owls, Male Hen Harriers more Beardies another cracking day of winter birding! 

Short-eared Owl

Bearded Tit

Marsh Harrier

It was a great day more pics at the link

Elmley

I've done most of my birding in Sussex this year and managed to see some pretty good birds. A few pics below.

Wryneck, self found (whoop) down the Cuckmere 

Nightingale at Pulborough Brooks

Rock Pipit, as always confiding, this one at Brighton Marina

Yellow-legged Gull, Brighton Marina

Black Redstart, flaunting itself at the Pied Wheatear twitch Splash Point

Purple Sandpiper Newhaven East Pier

Whinchat at the Cuckmere

Desert Wheatear, Belle Tout

Hawfinch, Fairmile Bottom

Firecrest, Fairmile Bottom

Great Northern Diver ,Shoreham

Turtle Dove, Knepp

Grey Partridge, Kithurst Hill

Red-backed Shrike , Littlehampton

Great Grey Shrike, Blackdown

Woodlark

Corn Bunting, seen several in various places 

Cirl Bunting, Portslade

Hobby, fantastic day watching these at Pulborough Brooks

Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, Ashdown

Kingfisher, Widewater

Stonechat, pretty much everywhere, when there is nothing else there is always a Stonechat!

 Some memorable days out there and all relatively close to home!!  

The Garden has provided a lot of entertainment, notably our Swift box. The local Swifts showed a lot of interest in it making numerous flypasts and banging on the box, none nested, they were thought to be young birds, 2 years old,  so hopefully next year they will return and we will be successful.

Swift had hours of fun trying to get pictures of these around the house! This was possibly the last time I saw a blue sky in 2024!

Checking out the box, hopefully next year we will get some lodgers!

We have had a lot more variety in the Garden this year, along with the usual Sparrows, Starlings, Robins, Dunnocks and Blackbirds we have had regular visits from up to 12 Goldfinch, 5 Blue Tits, 2 Coal Tits , a couple of Wrens, 4 Great Tits, 2 different Great Spotted Woodpeckers and the occasional visit from a flock of Long-tailed Tits, becoming pretty much daily in the last couple of weeks. Sparrowhawks are occasional visitors but less obvious than they used to be. In the Autumn we had numerous Chiffchaffs moving through. We've also had a couple of Grey Squirrels, an investment in Squirrel proof feeders has reduced visits and the revamped pond has had up to 4 Frogs in it! Our wildlife Garden, small though it is provides us with hours of entertainment . Highly recommend turning your garden over to wildlife a lot less work and loads of fun! All the pics below were taken in the Garden.

Long-tailed Tit

Coal Tit, not easy to get pics they don't hang around!

Blue Tit

Dunnock

Chiffchaff

Juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker, a Female, we also have an adult male visiting

Acrobat, the purchase of Squirrel proof feeders put a stop to these antics, but still visits and clears up any spillage 

The legendary Mister White-eye who has dominated our Garden for the last 3 years, although couple of interlopers in the garden at the moment so maybe his time is over, we will see in the spring

One of Mr White-eye's offspring

Young Starlings appeared in the garden throughout the summer 

Goldfinch

Young Sparrow, like the Starlings youngsters were appearing regularly through the summer, being fed by their parents, although it is amazing how quickly they master the feeders.

Male Sparrowhawk, don't think we were in a territory as visits were very occasional, probably seen them on about 3 occasions this year 

Greenfinch had three in the garden this year including a juvenile, but seem to have gone missing for the moment !

Blackcap was in the garden in January, just had a visit of from a couple this winter, as usual turned up just before Christmas.

Male House Sparrow having a bath, we have a fancy-dan new Birdbath now

A young Robin that took up residence during the summer, think it's still here, now in adult plumage!

The Male Great Spotted Woodpecker, still visiting but only occasionally

Great Tit

 

Bit of Frog porn in the pond, lots of Frogspawn, but not many Tadpoles! maybe went too early!

Warning!!!! The next couple of paragraphs are very sad, hankies at the ready, you'll be in floods of tears, so many tears in fact that you may be able to count it as an audition to get on the repair shop!! 😂

As said didn't really travel much this year, did head to Oare Marshes in hope of a lifer, but missed the Night Heron by 10 minutes😢Did see the returning Bonaparte's Gull and a few other goodies. Full tale of woe at the link

Heron Dip

Little Stint and Curlew Sandpiper

Water Rail

Reed Bunting

Also dipped the Canvasback at Abberton almost a year to the day when I dipped it last year😢

Canvas dip

Pochards

Great Crested Grebe

Also missed the news of the Caspian Tern down at Shoreham, turned up at dawn the next day, dipped again, seems to be a pattern emerging here😂 If you can bear any more woe and heartbreak the story is at the link

Caspian dip

Black-headed Gull

Mute Swan

We also had a nice walk around Richmond Park, amazing how tame the Deer are!

Deerfest 

Red Deer

Parrakeet 

Haven't done much Seawatching this year, a few spring days with pretty much the usual fare, an account of what was probably the best one at the link

Seawatch

Arctic Skua

Cormorant

Fulmar

Kittiwake

Must do more Seawatching next year!!!!

Didn't get out much locally, the Patch has been poor this year, with the best habitat trashed by the farming community, though a few walks from the Clayton Windmills and a couple of jaunts up Wolstonbury Hill were enjoyable!

Yellowhammer

Skylark

Me having conquered Wolstonbury! Can't believe this fashion ensemble hasn't caught on yet!

Raven

Corn Bunting

Meadow Pipit

Skylark

Wolstonbury, Spotted Flycatcher

Linnet

Yellowhammer

So that is about that, a pretty good year, though a lot of miles walked for those rewards. Numerous large beasts encountered and bravely negotiated 😱Notably at Knepp !!! So many beasts.....😰😱😱😱😱

Defying Death

The weather this autumn/winter has been against me, not just in general, whenever I'm off work it's been raining!!!! So things have tailed off a bit in the last few weeks😢

Hopefully things will improve going into 2025,  couple of holidays booked already, Spring in Scotland East/West coast split, then an Autumn trip to Cornwall in search of Shearwaters with a pelagic trip already booked, fingers crossed on the weather! So plenty to look forward to!! 

Hope everyone has a great New Year and sees all the birds they want to next year and by everyone I mean me!!!!!!! 😂😂

Happy New Year!!!!🎉🎉🥳🥳🎉🎉