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 start and close to the end of the month.  

The Black Stork and breeding Zitting Cisticola (with four fledged young!) were a brilliant pairing early on, and have stayed the whole month, while the 24 hours of Black-winged Kite were brief but exhilarating.  A Black-winged Pratincole that I chased to Northumberland and then to Lincolnshire was welcome before the shock bird of the month, a Montagu's Harrier within 30 miles of home, which has been a dream to see since I was 10 years old was my highlight, and honestly, that it was reasonably local was a huge bonus both because who doesn't love a local rarity and because it didn't require a whole day of travel in order to see a quality bird.  These have unquestionably been exceptional birds to see, and I am fortunate and grateful to have been able to see them.  However, those three days of birding during August are peaks that have served to put into stark contrast the troughs in a difficult month.

There have been a few months this year where I've lamented the state of birding near home.  Throughout the year I've been keeping a tally of species seen within 10km, and despite putting in more than twice as much time to local birding in 2025 than any other year since 2020 when I began patching, I've seen fewer species (and lower numbers of most of those) close to home.  The environmental and climate impacts are clear to see even across a five year timescale, and these are stressful and worrying indicators of long-term trends.  On the purely practical day to day birding level, it has meant that to see anything else has required long drives, and, this year more than any other I can remember, those drives have been 3+ hours each way.  This means that a hell of a lot of effort goes into seeing any kind of number of species if you live in an area like mine.  That effort has taken its toll this year, and I'm weary of the sheer amount of time I have to invest to see anything new.  

Perhaps it's a change of perspective that I need.  I read about people who love their patch and will only see birds that come to their local area, and I wonder if it's me that's broken, my boredom threshold too low, my need to see and experience the novel overriding a healthy appreciation of what is there.  But then, social media, birding companies, apps, WhatsApp groups and so on create this churn of desire for the new, which is at least partly natural.  We all want to see more wildlife, not less.  We all want to experience something special.  How can a birder ignore that?  How can I tune that out and still appreciate how fortunate those people in other areas are?  Is my intellectual curiosity supposed to be curbed?  Am I supposed to be enthralled with every Meadow Pipit and Blue Tit in the Manchester desert, or is that another poetic ideal that isn't really lived - some sort of nature influencer idealism that is impossible to live up to?  A Disney-princess singing to the deer and the birds in the simple joy of being alive?  Is it as much a cultivated image as the YouTube yoga practitioner and the Instagrammer having their beautifully fake life documented to curate levels of envy to drive sales?  Or is it real?  Are there really people who live in such a wildlife-poor area and feel satisfaction with it?  Maybe they all just live a more comfortably middle-class and rural life away from the stressful grey melange of Manchester and therefore don't need to seek ways to find green space and wild encounters because they're surrounded by it all the time.

More questions than answers in the most difficult month of the year so far, though I know that autumn will cheer me up and give me opportunities to see some good birds.  I committed to honesty, and honestly, though I'm grateful and recognise how fortunate I am to have seen the things I have this month, I'm still hoping that September is better.

Highlights

Black Stork, Zitting Cisticola, Black-winged Kite, Black-winged Pratincole, Montagu's Harrier

Year List total: 284

New for me in the UK this month: 4 (Black Stork, Zitting Cisticola, Black-winged Kite, Montagu's Harrier)

10k circle total: 134

Birds I missed: Black-winged Pratincole (and then caught up with it!); Marsh Sandpiper (twice); Barred Warbler (four times); Red-necked Phalarope

The Year List:

Brent Goose

Canada Goose

Barnacle Goose

Ross's Goose

Snow Goose

Greylag Goose

Taiga Bean Goose

Pink-footed Goose

Tundra Bean Goose

White-fronted Goose

Lesser White-fronted Goose

Mute Swan

Bewick's Swan

Whooper Swan

Egyptian Goose

Shelduck

Mandarin Duck

Garganey

Blue-winged Teal

Shoveler

Gadwall

Wigeon

American Wigeon

Mallard

Pintail

Teal

Green-winged Teal

Red-crested Pochard

Pochard

Ferruginous Duck

Ring-necked Duck

Tufted Duck

Scaup

Lesser Scaup

Eider

Surf Scoter

Velvet Scoter

White-winged Scoter

Common Scoter

Black Scoter

Long-tailed Duck

Goldeneye

Smew

Goosander

Red-breasted Merganser

Ruddy Duck

Red Grouse

Ptarmigan

Black Grouse

Grey Partridge

Pheasant

Quail

Red-legged Partridge

Nightjar

Swift

Cuckoo

Rock Dove (Feral Pigeon)

Stock Dove

Woodpigeon

Turtle Dove

Collared Dove

Water Rail

Moorhen

Coot

Crane

Little Grebe

Red-necked Grebe

Great Crested Grebe

Slavonian Grebe

Black-necked Grebe

Stone-curlew

Oystercatcher

Avocet

Grey Plover

Golden Plover

Pacific Golden Plover

Ringed Plover

Little Ringed Plover

Lapwing

Grey-headed Lapwing

Eurasian Whimbrel

Curlew

Bar-tailed Godwit

Black-tailed Godwit

Jack Snipe

Woodcock

Snipe

Common Sandpiper

Spotted Sandpiper

Green Sandpiper

Wood Sandpiper

Redshank

Lesser Yellowlegs

Spotted Redshank

Greenshank

Turnstone

Knot

Ruff

Curlew Sandpiper

Temminck's Stint

Sanderling

Dunlin

Purple Sandpiper

Little Stint

White-rumped Sandpiper

Pectoral Sandpiper

Western Sandpiper

Collared Pratincole

Little Tern

Black Tern

Arctic Tern

Common Tern

Roseate Tern

Sandwich Tern

Little Gull

Ross's Gull

Kittiwake

Black-headed Gull

Laughing Gull

Mediterranean Gull

Common Gull

Caspian Gull

Herring Gull

Yellow-legged Gull

Great Black-backed Gull

Lesser Black-backed Gull

Iceland Gull

Arctic Skua

Pomarine Skua

Great Skua

Puffin

Black Guillemot

Razorbill

Common Guillemot

Red-throated Diver

Great Northern Diver

White-billed Diver

Storm Petrel

Fulmar

Cory's Shearwater

Sooty Shearwater

Great Shearwater

Manx Shearwater

Balearic Shearwater

White Stork

Gannet

Cormorant

Shag

Glossy Ibis

Spoonbill

Bittern

Night-heron

Little Egret

Great White Egret

Cattle Egret

Grey Heron

Osprey

Honey-buzzard

Golden Eagle

Sparrowhawk

Goshawk

Hen Harrier

Marsh Harrier

Red Kite

Black Kite

White-tailed Eagle

Buzzard

Barn Owl

Little Owl

Long-eared Owl

Short-eared Owl

Tawny Owl

Hoopoe

Kingfisher

Bee-eater

Lesser Spotted Woodpecker

Great Spotted Woodpecker

Green Woodpecker

Kestrel

Red-footed Falcon

Merlin

Hobby

Peregrine

Ring-necked Parakeet

Great Grey Shrike

Woodchat Shrike

Jay

Magpie

Chough

Jackdaw

Rook

Carrion Crow

Hooded Crow

Raven

Coal Tit

Crested Tit

Marsh Tit

Willow Tit

Blue Tit

Great Tit

Penduline Tit

Bearded Tit

Woodlark

Skylark

Shore Lark

Sand Martin

Swallow

House Martin

Cetti's Warbler

Long-tailed Tit

Wood Warbler

Willow Warbler

Chiffchaff

Great Reed Warbler

Sedge Warbler

Blyth's Reed Warbler

Reed Warbler

Savi's Warbler

Grasshopper Warbler

Blackcap

Garden Warbler

Lesser Whitethroat

Eastern Subalpine Warbler

Whitethroat

Dartford Warbler

Firecrest

Goldcrest

Wren

Nuthatch

Treecreeper

Starling

Song Thrush

Mistle Thrush

Redwing

Blackbird

Fieldfare

Ring Ouzel

Spotted Flycatcher

Robin

Nightingale

Bluethroat

Pied Flycatcher

Black Redstart

Redstart

Whinchat

Stonechat

Wheatear

Dipper

Tree Sparrow

House Sparrow

Dunnock

Yellow Wagtail

Eastern Yellow Wagtail

Grey Wagtail

Pied Wagtail

Meadow Pipit

Tree Pipit

American Pipit

Water Pipit

Rock Pipit

Chaffinch

Brambling

Hawfinch

Bullfinch

Greenfinch

Twite

Linnet

Redpoll

Common Crossbill

European Goldfinch

Siskin

Lapland Bunting

Snow Bunting

Corn Bunting

Yellowhammer

Ortolan Bunting

Cirl Bunting

Reed Bunting

Song Sparrow

Black Stork
Zitting Cisticola
Black-winged Kite
Black-winged Pratincole
Montagu's Harrier