Manchester Birder's November 2025 Summary

 


So there went November, the tumbling of months seeming to increase in velocity as winter dark grips every birding day in a vice of time pressure.  Birding this last few weeks has been really enjoyable - I've always been one for winter birding, preferring wildfowl to warblers, and cold walks interspersed with open fire stone walled pubs to summer heat and beer gardens.  There has been something of an anti-climatic feel to the Big Year, though November actually outperformed October, and it's been good to free myself from thinking about birding in the context of the framework of the 300.  

Local birding is interesting in winter - summer is very quiet here, and though we do have autumn migration it's a case of seeing what flies over, more noticing what's leaving, so winter and spring are the seasons for Manchester wildlife.  The knowledge that there is the daily opportunity to see gorgeous Short-eared Owls within 5 miles of home provides a sort of birding reassurance that there won't be an empty day, a nature-free void.  

I have had some good days of birding on the east coast, with visits to Spurn for a noisy but hard to see Hume's Warbler and Flamborough for a trio of very showy Dusky Warblers competing with an incredible day in Teesside and Durham seeing Olive-backed Pipit and Pallid Swift.  Two days of birding in Northumberland and Cumbria with Lee were a good laugh and contributed to the growing feeling that I don't live in the right place.  The variety of wildlife I've seen this month has been broad, and there is something otherworldly about flocks of waders and wildfowl over huge landscapes that transcends every attempt to verbalise.  Watching the Golden Plover wheel around the form of a Peregrine in Lancashire made me exclaim out loud to myself, but the most poetic I got was a breathless, "wow!" - disappointingly prosaic for a man who loves words.  

December is a strange month for birding, but there's always a rare bird or two found during it.  I wonder how much of that is an increase in time to go birding around Christmas - for many people it can be a manically busy time, but for others without family commitments or sacrifices on the altar of capitalism, or who are coping with seasonal depression or struggling with loneliness, late December birding is a lifeline.  Many people have a little bit of time off around Christmas with a large number of companies closed down across the last week of the year, and there is often a need to stretch the legs and get some fresh air away from enforced family contact with the in-laws or simply to walk off some of the excesses of food and booze that come with the solstice feasting.  Perhaps this leads to people finding birds that have been present all the way through the early winter, an increased number of birders meaning an increased number of sightings.  Whatever the cause, these late birds are entertaining and something to look forward to in the days of the year with the least light.  There is still an outside chance of reaching 310 species this year, and that would feel satisfying in a way, though there is little drive left to push that hard - perhaps my own Christmas wandering will be motivating in itself.

Otherwise, December will be spent writing.  Behind the scenes this year I've been writing more deeply of my experiences and how birding has impacted on them.  It might never go beyond an aide memoir project for myself, but with 45,000+ words already written I might as well try and put it into some order and make myself a book of the year.



Highlights

Northumberland, Olive-backed Pipit, Pallid Swift, Dusky Warbler, Hume's Leaf Warbler, Snow Bunting and Bewick's Swans.

Year List total: 306

New for me in the UK this month: 2 (Olive-backed Pipit; Pallid Swift) 

10k circle total: 140

Birds I missed: plenty of species I haven't even attempted to see, but almost everything I aimed at showed well this month.

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
Pechora Pipit
Grey Phalarope
Red-necked Phalarope
White-winged Black Tern
Siberian Stonechat
Marsh Sandpiper
Dotterel
Greenish Warbler
Sabine's Gull
Barred Warbler
Yellow-browed Warbler
Leach's Petrel
Mourning Dove
Common Rosefinch
Wryneck
Rosy Starling
Dusky Warbler
Black-throated Diver
Little Auk
Pallid Swift
Olive-backed Pipit
Hume's Leaf Warbler




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