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 circularity of feeling that led me to focus my attention on what I might see in the vast flat of the saltmarsh and the flood plains of the north west.  

Watching Ring-necked Duck at arms length and scanning through herds of Pink-footed Geese, photographing Redwings and Fieldfares, flushing Jack Snipe and Green Sandpiper on my patch - these close up small encounters and the contrasting vastness of birding in December in Lancashire offer reflections on the simultaneous personal scope and landscape-scale nature of winter wildlife.  I find that embedding of that small scale birding in the appreciation of the bigger spectacles pleasing in a way that I'm not eloquent enough to explain.  There is a satisfaction in walking along a path between a vast river flood plain and miles of fields with the sounds of ten thousand geese and the same in Wigeon and Teal and being focused on the movement of a Meadow Pipit in the immediate environment; allowing awareness to expand to pick up on the shapes of Merlin and Peregrine hunting as Golden Plover and Lapwing leap from earth to air in a mass that offers hints of shape and meaning that we can never really tease out.  Beyond the murmurations the ghosting glide and flap of Hen Harrier draw our attention to its limits; and so we have become aware of miles and miles of the world hopping from species to species until a great dome of existence is the extent of our mindfulness.  Unable to sustain such scope, we draw in again upon the Skylark and the wagtail, picking out these tiny pulses of vitality to help us reset our sense of scale and self.

There is a sense of bittersweetness about December every year, and a reason that many cultures have their feasts and festivals of light at this dark and cold part of the year as we draw inwards and become introspective.  This December in particular has a joyfulness and a melancholy as the Big Year comes to a close.  It has been an absolute pleasure to go birding with some excellent birders and to meet some great humans.  There have been thousands of encounters with birds and wildlife - too many to mention here (and that's what the blog was for!), but it has been a labour of love and a devotion that has saved me from the darkest of times more than once.

I've tried to categorise and evaluate my year a few different ways during the last month and my efforts have been largely futile: how do I quantify such a brilliant year of birding in any way that doesn't leave out something incredible?  Maybe the best I can say about it is this: I've been birding 340+ times this year and the things I have seen make me wish I could have got out even more.

2026 will, I hope, be a continuation of birding adventures in Manchester and beyond.  A little more sedate than this year, and a focus on seeing those 23 species that would take me to 400 in the UK.  I will keep writing and hope you will keep reading.  There's no great year list attempt for 2026, and it's back to a more normal routine of birding.  So how will next year begin?  With a Big Day in Lancashire and an attempt to see 100 species of birds of course - just because I'm not aiming for 300 doesn't mean I'm not looking...  Happy New Year to you and yours.  See you out there.

Highlights

Desert Wheatear, Lesser Crested Tern, Baikal Teal, Bufflehead, birding widely across Lancashire and seeing Tundra Bean Goose, Russian White-fronted Goose, Snow Goose, Ring-necked Duck, Cattle Egret, Glossy Ibis, Smew and more fairly close to home.

Year List total: 310 (308 after Avilist moved the goalposts on Christmas Eve, losing Hooded Crow and Green-winged Teal!)

New for me in the UK this month: 2 (Desert Wheatear; Lesser Crested Tern) 

New for me in the UK this year: 29 (White-billed Diver, Ross's Gull, Taiga Bean Goose, Ross's Goose, American Pipit, Penduline Tit, Eastern Yellow Wagtail, Ptarmigan, Black Kite, Eastern Subalpine Warbler, Spotted Sandpiper, Western Sandpiper, Song Sparrow, Ortolan Bunting, Pacific Golden Plover, Blyth's Reed Warbler, Zitting Cisticola, Black Stork, Black-winged Kite, Montagu's Harrier, Pechora Pipit, Marsh Sandpiper, Leach's Petrel, Barred Warbler, Mourning Dove, Olive-backed Pipit, Pallid Swift, Lesser Crested Tern, Desert Wheatear.)

10k circle total: 142 (Scaup at Pennington Flash the last)

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

Desert Wheatear

Baikal Teal

Lesser Crested Tern

Bufflehead