Manchester Birder's August 2025 Summary
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...