The Manchester Birder

A stormy week with some actual much-needed rain has meant that I have finally been able to see some birds within an hours' drive of home, rather than looking at every species coming in 3-4 hours away, which has made some difference to my quality of life and getting a rest this last week.  This mini influx of species into my local area has me thinking about the difficulties of living in Manchester and trying to be a Big Year lister.  I've been speaking to a fellow lister this week about the difficulties of a north west England based approach.  There are two big pluses for living here during a Big Year: one, there is a decent community of good birders; and two, it's easy (outside of rush hour) to get on the M62 to get across to East Yorkshire for autumn migration .  However, two weeks into September, and the wind has been constantly from the west, meaning access to Flamborough and Spurn hasn't been the key to a productive autumn so far. Manx Shearwater inland in Lancas...

I don't have a photo of a Greenish Warbler to head this blog, though it's not for a lack of effort.  It's always good to break a run of dipping birds, and last time out I broke my recent poor record by seeing at least one Greenish Warbler in two different locations.  Arriving at Thornwick early in the morning I was directed by a friendly local to where the strip of hedges and pine trees runs behind the Adventure Barn at the camp site.  The Greenish showed fairly well almost immediately, allowing me to observe it for a good half a minute and pick up the differences between it and other phylloscs .  This caught me off guard with camera still in the bag, and I didn't want to stop watching to get my gear together.  It lulled me into a sense of false security that the bird was going to perch well so I could photograph it at leisure. Once it dived into cover, I got my camera ready and waited patiently for it to reappear.   Of course, for the next hour it was...

An integral part of the birding experience, and certainly one I have encountered lately, is missing out on a bird you have targeted.  I've tried to communicate a little about how it feels to be a birder in my blog, and spoke today to a person who made me realise that if you glanced across the forty-odd posts I've put up this year, you'd think I was just having successful birding day after incredible wildlife experience all year long.  This is not the truth of mine (or any) birding, and contrary to the Tiktok-ification of wildlife watching, there's a fair percentage of failure involved.  This is not only obvious, and to be expected; it is to be embraced - where is the skill in following detailed instructions on an app to a location tagged with GPS, to see a bird that will not move?  Surely it's only the jeopardy of missing out on seeing the bird that makes a rare bird worth seeing, and, if we never miss out, how will we appreciate our good fortune when we see the bir...

    August has been a strangely mixed month and I have wrestled with my expectations of myself and the wildlife I was hoping to see.  I've seen four lifers, all of which were superb experiences and two of which were super rare for the UK.  However, the majority of birding this month has been me missing a bird I was aiming to see, or seeing next to nothing on the local patches, which have been seriously quiet this year.  I have committed to being honest during this year in my blog, as a way of documenting the birding year and its effect on me.  This isn't always a popular thing - being honest sometimes includes being disappointed or feeling low, and August was comfortably the least productive and most depressing month of the year.  It always promises so much, and then, from the perspective of an inland birder in the North West, delivers very little.  There have been some obvious exceptions to this during the month, with incredible birds at the very...