The Results - The Christmas Bird Challenge 2016

 

 

For those of you, and there were 10 of you who took part, the results of the 2016 Christmas Bird Challenge are in. And It was a fabulous selection of birding lists from across the United Kingdom. The reason I like this challenge is that it "forces" us all out into the Great Outdoors over the festive period.

 

Although there were two categories, most from a garden and overall highest species list, the real winners are all of you who took part. Maybe as you enjoyed it so much we should consider an Easter challenge when the migrants will be flooding in. But that's for another day.

 

And so without further a-do here are the winners and the competition lists from those of you who took part. WELL DONE!!!

Garden Lists :  Winner – Andrew Smith with a whopping 33

Overall Supreme Champion – Stewart Sexton with 90

Here are the results in no particular order - just when they came in.

Iris Bassett – 9 species from around the Bristol area.

Iris wrote "Ducks under the bridge in Pensford near church yard. Quite a few other very small birds, (don't know if chickens and a rooster count).". Ed comment. No Iris domestic chickens or budgies are definitely not allowed :-)

Starlings, Seagulls, Wood pigeons, Blackbirds, Pheasant, Robin, Owl - only heard one, not seen, Woodpecker.

Dr Simon Acey  - We got a total of 85 species – North East and North West. 

Simon a great birder since childhood said " Had an excellent week walking off Christmas excess. Highlight for us was excellent views of a water rail though missed the waxwings... Attached is our list from Dalton Piercy. Don't know if the Black Swan counts - it was in the wild at Saltholme. I think our total is therefore either 84 or 85 "

Ed comment. Sorry Simon I failed completely to download and read your list, but knowing how honest you NHS staff are, it's all okay :-)  Oh and yes a black swan, if it is living wild and not in a captive collection, is allowed.


Stewart Sexton – aka the Boulmer Birder from Northumberland  90

Stewart lives next to the best stretch of coast in Northumberland and has a fantastic blog, where he also posts some of his outstanding bird art. No list from Stewart, but his 90 stands on a nod and a handshake over Facebook !!

Stewart said "Hi Andrew well thats the week done and I finished on a nice clean 90 species. Highlights included Peregrine, Mediterranean Gull, several Kingfishers, Black tailed Godwit, Purple Sandpiper and Grey Plover. Obvious misses were Coot, Meadow Pipit, Skylark, Fieldfare plus many more. I didnt do any twitching or even visit any reserves, all seen just wandering around locally. All tbe best, Stewart. "

Well done Stewart a great win especially if having not visited any reserves.


Andrew Dawes – 80 – South West

A weird year for me doing this. I got to nearly 60 species by Boxing Day and then each day struggled to add more. But overjoyed with the otter on Chrstmas Day, as well as a greenfinch as I'd not seen one of these once ubiquitous finches for over a year.

Christmas Day in the garden - Robin, house sparrow (35+), starling, collared dove, wood pigeon, carrion crow, blackbird, magpie, herring gull, jackdaw, redwing, blue tit, black headed gull, dunnock, great tit. Out and about on the Somerset Levels - buzzard, long tailed tit, grey heron, little egret, pheasant, rook, goldcrest, goldfinch, chaffinch, moorhen, coot, cormorant, teal, OTTER, kingfisher, great crested grebe, wren, marsh harrier, greylag goose, pochard, jay, great spotted woodpecker, kestrel, stonechat, lapwing, widgeon, snipe (flushed from a few feet away - magical views), shoveller, bullfinch, great white egret, gadwall, reed bunting.

Remaining species from Boxing Day - Canada goose, pied wagtail, little grebe, tufted duck, Cetti's warbler, Raven, BITTERN (spotted by Julie in amongst the starlings at roost at Ham Wall),

Sand Bay 27th - my local patch. Curlew, oystercatcher, shelduck, dunlin meadow pipit, grey plover.

Topsham in Devon 28th - Day out with the nearest and dearest but I had to take my bins : Red breasted merganser, avocet, brent goose (bit far away over the mudflats to see if pale or not),bar tailed godwit, black tailed godwit, song thrush, redshank, water rail, goldeneye.

Cheddar reservoir 29th - scaup, common gull, lesser black backed gull, fieldfare (at last!!) grey wagtail, sparrowhawk, green woodpecker.

December 30th - absolutely nothing!

New Years Eve in Wiltshire - Red kite, greenfinch, corn bunting, coal tit and stock dove.

New Years Day - abysmal weather but had an hour at Catcott just to get out - pintail! Last bird of the year.

Ed Drewitt – 86 -  Around the south of England.

Ed is one of the top birders and wildlife experts in the UK and hosts wildlife holidays for organisations like Naturetrek - and what he doesn't know about peregrine feeding habits is not worth knowing. He and his wife Liz almost toppled Stewart.

Ed said " Hello Andrew, Happy New Year! I reached 86 bird species (88 if we combine Liz and me together). Highlights include four red-throated divers, hen harrier, corn buntings, thousands of knot and wonderful views of waders at high tide on the Isle of Sheppey, Bewick's swans, all the winter thrushes, barn owl, stonechat and nuthatch. Hope you had a good festive season - our birds have been busy in the garden. Best wishes Ed "


Julie Rana – 15 from the stables in Northumberland.

Great list Julie, good to know the horse fields are alive with birds, I hope this has sparked more interest - I know it has as you'll be doing the Garden Birdwatch soon with your son. Good luck with that.

Julie said " Bird race - Stable yard and winter field., Choppington, Northumberland. Buzzard, robin, chaffinch, blue tit, crow, common gull, starling, pheasant, jay, blackbird, collared dove, wood pigeon, racing pigeon, wren, partridge. xx "


Gill Brown – 49  in total from around North Somerset.

Gill is one of natures champions - a dormouse and otter expert and passionate about all wildlife in her local area and beyond. It is people like Gill who spend hours a week helping wildlife.

Gill said "Facebook managed to lose the message I sent with this! The best birding days were taken up with family but we did brave the rain yesterday and spent a rather dull afternoon on the Severn Estuary. Great fun though and I would definitely do it again. Thanks Andrew!"

Garden - 18
Blue tit, Great tit, Goldfinch, Blackbird, Wood Pigeon, Collared dove, House sparrow, Long tailed tit
Magpie, Black headed gull, Starling, Greater spotted woodpecker, Tawny owl, Robin, Wren, Carrion crow, Dunnock, Jackdaw

Out and About – 31

(Land Yeo Valley and Towerhouse Wood, Backwell Lake, Clevedon sea wall, Severn Beach, New Passage, Aust, Strawberry Line, The Causeway on Nailsea Moor)
Mute swan, Shoveller duck, Tufted duck, Mallard duck, Feral pigeon, Green woodpecker, Curlew
Reed bunting, Skylark, Shellduck, Stonechat, Lapwing, Oystercatcher, Greenfinch, Kingfisher, Herring gull, Moorhen, Buzzard, Meadow pipit, Raven, Pied Wagtail, Canada Goose, Redshank, Dunlin, Grey Heron, Coot, Little egret, Cormorant, Water rail, Rook, Song thrush.

Andrew Smith –  33 - North Yorkshire

Andrew's 33 from and around his garden is a great total - we did have a long FB discussion about the hooded crow (normally not seen in England) and having done some searching a couple of records were put in from Durham and North Yorkshire over Christmas too. So the 33 stands.... next time a photo Andrew - we'd love to see this in Yorks.

Andrew said " Have really enjoyed this - I feel privileged to have seen these all from my own house / garden "

1. Blackbird 2. Goldfinch 3. Great Tit 4. Blue Tit 5. Cole Tit 6. Crow 7. Hooded crow 8. jackdaw9. Collared Dove 10. House Sparrow 11. Tree / Hedge Sparrow 12. Gull 13. Pigeon 14. Wood Pigeon 15. Starling 16. Robin 17, Pheasant 18. Chaffinch 19.Fieldfare 20.geese (Barnacle) 21. Blackcap 22. Greater Spotted Woodpecker ( Male ) 23. Lapwing 24. Wren 25. Kestrel 26. Canada Goose 27. Black Headed Gull 28. Greenfinch 29. Grey wagtail 30. Mallard 31. Brambling 32. Tree creeper 33. Sparrow hawk


Richard Comont – 38 - Malverns and Cheshire

Richard is one of life's greats - and so young :-) A superb entomologist now bringing his unique way to Bumblebee Conservation. As a Dr PhD id have expected nothing less than Richards spread-sheet with both species and detailed information. If you ever get a chance to meet Richard at an event, you must. Great man.

Richard said " Hi Andrew, My sightings attached - 38 species in all, all from walking the dog on the Malverns plus a drive up to Cheshire.  Highlights were ravens, a pair of peregrines, and the first bullfinches I've seen in a long time! Cheers, Richard"

Collared Dove, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Black-headed Gull, Pheasant, Rock Dove, Starling, Lapwing, Grey Heron, Coot, Mallard, Mute Swan, Woodpigeon, Blue Tit, Jackdaw, Blackbird, Goldfinch, Fieldfare, Redwing, Chaffinch, House Sparrow, Canada Goose, Carrion Crow, Robin, Black-headed Gull, Tawny Owl, Raven, Song Thrush, Wren, Bullfinch, Green Woodpecker, Long-tailed Tit, Buzzard, Jay, Peregrine, Dunnock, Magpie.


Miranda Bell – 19  from Herefordshire

Miranda and her husband has just moved back to Hay on Wye after years in France and someone I met through blogging - having blogged about her wonderful wildlife rich garden in Brittany. However we've never met, but in 2017 plan to rectify this.

Miranda said " Hi Andrew  Hope you've both had a great Christmas...here are a list of birds seen in our garden here near Hay from 28 Dec – 1 Jan...not that impressive compared to others I’m sure. The highlight was the female Bullfinch – see so few of these now. Look forward to hearing how other people got on!"

Great tit,  Blue tit, Coal tit, Robin, Dunnock, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Buzzard, Chaffinch, Song thrush, Gold Crest, Bullfinch, Fieldfare, Starling, Blackbird, Long tailed tit, Crow, Wren, Magpie, Redwing

And last but by no means least....

Lyn Hunt – Dorset – 15 Garden

Lyn is another one of my blogging contacts and another I have not met although we used to frequent the same areas of Dorset.  Great to have your garden list Lyn, and on one day. Now here's a thought, you have 15 - how many at the end of 2017?

Lyn said " I saw 15 different varieties of birds in our garden on the 1st January, does that count?
Sparrows, Starlings, Dunnock, Blackbirds, Robin, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Blue Tit, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Carrion Crow, Wood Pigeon, Jackdaw, Nuthatch, Great Tit"


Thank you all for taking part - I hope you all enjoyed it, enjoyed working out what the birds were and above all enjoyed being out and about in nature. If I have missed anyone out, please do let me know and I'll rectify this.

Now where are my bins.............

The icing on the cake..... almost!

Well it's here, Christmas 2011. As I write this at 05.50hrs on Christmas Day, I'd like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and all prosperousness (is that a word) for 2012.

The following blog was meant to be written yesterday, on Christmas Eve, but for some reason the photos wouldn't upload, maybe everyone was last minute buying on-line so the systems crashed.

As a Christmas treat to myself, I have bought a feeding station. That's not quite true. It was offered at 50% off on the Crocus website in early December, but, after buying it for my parents, it arrived after we'd visited them for Christmas last weekend. So having arrived too late for them, as I'd bought something else in the meantime, I thought I'm going to have this for myself, as an early Santa present.

So mid day on Christmas Eve, I began the unpacking and assembly. I have to say I didn't realise there was as much kit. One of the reasons I initially bought it, was that my seed feeder had been damaged in a gale, so looking for a replacement, I found this which with the discount cost just a few pounds more (Scrooge is alive and well in Somerset). So having lost one feeder, I now have 2 seed feeders, a nut and fat block feeder, seed tray, bird bath and fat ball hanger. It's just missing the tinsel and Sat-Nav.

So after 45 minutes of top notch DIY skills (I only had to re-do the design twice), the thing was up, in a temporary position. While I was putting it up, I wondered how long it would be before birds began to use it. I was soon to find out......

...... because, well this is no word of a lie, this blue tit arrived on the feeder, seconds after I'd walked away, I'd not even reached the house when Julie said, look behind you. Fantastic, and followed in quick succession by a great tit and a robin....

This amazed me. I do feed the birds anyway, but in less than 15 seconds from erecting it in place they were using it. I assume they were watching me put this together from the wings, and eager to investigate, as in the blue tit photograph you can see a robin in the conifer, watching and waiting.

That done the next job was to put labels on the sloe gin. And here they are. I think I've got the marketing description perfect now........ click to enlarge.

And so the last job of Christmas Eve was the ice the Christmas cake. I've never iced a cake before, so Julie and I set to. The mixture was slightly runny, but by surreptitious use of Boyle's Law of equilibrium motion, we managed to make it look half presentable.

So it just leaves me once again to wish you all a Happy, Peaceful and Merry Christmas

And as I write this I can hear a robin singing in the dark, ....that's my first bird in the NHU Bird Cup. Bring it on!!

Christmas results.....

Hello all. At last I'm back on line. Phew, that was an illness and a half and I only really began to feel like a human being again a couple of days ago. I know a few of you have had flu and infections too over Christmas so you have my sympathies, and hope you are on the mend. Bring on the warm spring days.

A big thank you to those of you who took the time to do a bit of garden watching over the Christmas period. In the end even though I wasn't really with it, I managed 5 species, mainly house sparrow, starling, blue tit, dunnock and magpie. There may have been other species out there but I just didn't fancy sitting in the cold conservatory watching them.

This was all meant to be a bit of fun, but I shall make special mention to ST who managed a fabulous 27 species in his garden. By a long chalk ST is the winner of the competition. Well done.

But the competition was fun and just a way of getting through the dark days of winter, thus here are the equally credible entries in no particular order;

Caroline at Ragged Robin notched up a very credible 19 and also made mention of wrens roosting in old hanging baskets. Given the cold weather it would be interesting to know how many wrens in each basket each night.

Shirl at Shirl's Gardenwatch managed 12 species on Christmas Day and 18 in total, including brambling which is a nice garden tick. Sadly like many she recorded no greenfinches, sadly in a downward population dive. Outside the time frame she also had a reed bunting.

Frank the Early Birder, had a very good species count of 19, including the exotic ring necked parakeet and bucking the trend 12 greenfinches. Hold onto those Frank.

Sian way up in the Orkneys on her Small Island blog had 13 garden birds, but I think we'd all be so excited to include fulmar and hooded crow. As she said she only has one shrubby tree in her garden so not much cover.

Sadly Cindy at Cindy's Snaps sent me her list but I unfortunately never received it. If i get it after posting this I'll amend this post. Thankfully Cindy has now put through her score, a goodly 16, including a black headed gull with a taste for garlic bread. It all happens in Suffolk

It was great to have you posting your results especially given the weather across the UK, it wasn't the best of birding conditions. But thank you.

Finally some of you who left post comments to the original posting but never submitted your bird count also should have mention. I'm not sure if you took part of not. But that doesn't matter, we're all a big friendly blogging community out there so its good to promote each others work, so thank you for your comments to......

Lisa at Greenbow

Bluebird

Chris from Notes from a Somerset Garden

Goosey

Dartford Warbler

Yoke

A Happy New Year to you all!

Christmas Birding Competition

A Happy New Year to all. Apologies for the delay in writing this post, like many in the UK I was hit by first swine flu and then a chest infection over Christmas and only now in the second week of January am I beginning to resemble a human being again after taking such high levels of antibiotics I will be free of any disease for years to come. Sadly this meant no birdwatching at all for me, not even out the garden, far too much time spend lying in bed.

I see some results have come in for the Christmas Bird Competition, but I wonder how many more? If I work on a deadline of midnight this coming Friday for any submissions then I'll collect the results and post next Saturday (15th)

If you haven't already done so, please drop a comment on this posting with your results, please give some basic detail too as to where it took place - ie garden in Kent. Any highlights also fun to read.

Looking forward to writing this up in a weeks time. All the best, Andrew

Christmas Blogging-Bird Competition

I wonder if any of you bloggers out there fancy an informal, not for profit, just for the fun of taking part, birdwatching competition over the festive period? I could collate the entries and publish in January. I'd prefer this not to be an out and out competition so there will be no winners or losers, just a list of those taking part (should you decide to take part). Read more here...........

In the meantime, may I wish all the bloggers out there who read and comment on my postings, a very Merry Christmas with this image above from a photo I took 2 years ago. Lets hope we can all do it again in 2011, when I'll be back to post some more, Tales of a Wessex Reiver

............. now where are those waxwings???

2010 Christmas Birdwatching Event - any takes?

Every year in the NHU we have a NHU Christmas Birding Cup and it is great fun and a good excuse to get out of the house. 6 different categories from supreme champion (usually 100+ species seen) to most birds seen by a complete beginner. In 2008/9 I ran something similar, an informal birdwatching blog competition which was well received, I think.

So in 2010 I wonder if any of you bloggers out there fancy an informal, not for profit, just for the fun of taking part, birdwatching competition over the festive period? I could collate the entries and publish in January. I'd prefer this not to be an out and out competition so there will be no winners or losers, just a list of those taking part (should you decide to take part).

I'm keen that those new to birdwatching feel they have reason to take part, so even someone seeing 3 species in their garden will get an honourable mention. So I thought to make it simple, just 2 categories;

1) Highest garden list (that is, perched in, flying over or seen from a garden or urban park if you don't have a garden)

2) Total number of bird species seen over the Christmas period anywhere

Rules are simple too:

Count the number of different wild bird species you see or hear, between 00.00 on 25th December (i.e. midnight on Christmas Eve) and 24.00 on 1st January (i.e midnight at the end of New Year's Day). Escapes, cagebirds, birds in a zoo, the Christmas turkey, do not count – everything else does, so that would include for example free living pheasants or mandarin ducks.

If you'd like to take part, just leave a comment on this posting to say you'll have a go, then in early January send me numbers etc and I'll compile a list. Above all this is just a bit of fun so I'm sure we'll be interested in any anecdotes to freshen the list.