Manchester Birder's December 2025 Summary
What a year. My first bird of 2025 was a Dunnock on my garden on January 1st as I fought off a panic attack. My last species added was a Bufflehead in a beautiful area of Wales in the presence of many new friends, and my last species seen was a Scaup on Pennington Flash. Though in some ways I have limped over the line of the end of the year in terms of my Big Year attempt (only adding 4 species in the month when I could have travelled for at least 6 more) I have been much more content with birding in Lancashire and Manchester this month. The stunning highlight birds are all the more appreciated when those days are picked out of a series of visits to places that are, if not local, then at least localish. Incredible trips to Devon, Dorset and north Wales were the exceptions to my self-imposed rule of local birding. I wrote at the start of the year when I began this blog of days across Lancashire and how they made me feel and it was this cir...