Spotted Fly Wrapped (sorry)

If there's a phenomenon more boring than Spotify Wrapped I've yet to bump into it.  I literally couldn't care less about my own listening habits, let alone knowing other people's.  Why do we think anyone else cares that our musical age is 69 (my actual musical age apparently - I like early 70s music)?  Why am I bothered that Slight Return by the Bluetones is (bizarrely) my most listened to song, or that I've listened to 15,000 minutes of podcasts or that I'm in the top 17% of listeners to the Football Ramble this year?  And yet, in the face of this understanding that nobody else is even mildly interested in my personally meaningful statistics in any way, I'm going to do exactly that for my birding year.  Hypocrisy, thy name is blog content.

Once December arrives people begin to ask each other what the best wild experiences are of the year, and the answer depends on how you look at what we mean by "best".  Do we mean rarest?  New for me birds?  Best encounters?  Bogey birds seen?   Birds in the local area?  If it seems like I'm prevaricating because I can't narrow it down, well, that's basically correct.  I'm adjusting the concept to allow me 30 birds because there's no way I can reduce this amazing year down to a straight top 5.  It's my party etc etc...

Rarest bird(s):  In a technical sense, and basing this on how many sightings or how many recent sightings there have been of each species, the rarest birds I've seen this year are probably:

• Black-winged Kite (second for the UK)
• Mourning Dove (7th for UK; first for England)
• Song Sparrow (10 records, but first for 34 years)
• Lesser Crested Tern (50 records but first for 20 years)
• Grey-headed Lapwing (third year for the same bird, first in the UK)
• Western Sandpiper (21st for the UK)
• Zitting Cisticola (11th to 16th birds in the UK)

So as it stands Black-winged Kite takes the crown, though it's likely that they will colonise the south of the UK in the next decade and will become a much more common sight (along with Zitting Cisticola and Black Kite) and that makes me reluctant to attend any coronation.  That Zitting Cisticola bred successfully this year reduces them in my mind from a mega rarity to a rare breeder, though if it's a one-off they could regain that mega tag.  While I could make a case for how rare it is to see Pechora Pipit on the mainland of the UK, in strict terms it means that Grey-headed Lapwing, seen on January 9th, is probably the actual rarest bird I've seen this year being the only individual ever to make it as far as England.  The negative 11 degrees Celsius temperatures that day are likely to have driven it away or finished it off and I wonder if we'll ever see it again.  

Favourite birds: a personal category and subjective with it.  Though there are a lot of candidates for this I think that the joy of seeing that White-billed Diver in Northumberland in January remains in my mind as a symbol of the whole year.  I've seen rarer birds, and prettier ones, and I've had close encounters with some amazing wildlife; but the diver was a huge redemptive stride towards recovery and my pictures where the clear sun shines on that ivory bill evokes something in me deeper than bones.  

Best day of birding: there have been so many days of brilliant birding this year that it's almost impossible to pick single days out.  I loved the East Anglia weekend (as usual) in May, and the Mourning Dove with American Pipit, Spotted Sandpiper, Hoopoe and so on is hard to look past.  The Olive-backed Pipit, Pallid Swift and Dusky Warbler day on the east coast was incredible, though seeing Black-winged Pratincole and Montagu's Harrier on the same day is hard to beat.  Black Stork and Zitting Cisticola would be in anyone's top 5, and there were a host of days where I just enjoyed birding where I wasn't actively searching for a rare bird.  However, I said at the time that my January 9th visit to Northumberland to see the White-billed Diver, Grey-headed Lapwing and Ross's Gull would be the best day of birding in the year and it still stands out as the most joyful birding experience across the whole year.

Best local birds: self-found Bee-eater on patch is up there as my most exhilarating moment.  Crane, Channel Wagtail, Lesser Scaup, Manx Shearwater, Great Skua all within the 10k; Penduline Tit, (just outside the 10k).  

Most ridiculous twitch: Black Stork and Zitting Cisticola.  What was I thinking?  Sleeping in the boot of my car like I'm still 20 and healthy.  Insert your own eye roll emoji.

Most attempts to see: Marsh Sandpiper.  What a faff.  Missed it in Oxfordshire, missed it in south Wales.  Three attempts to see it in Scotland, one flat tyre, one visual migraine and one camera malfunction when I did finally get eyes on it.  

Bogey birds found: It's been a good year for this - Leach's Petrel, Barred Warbler, Desert Wheatear, Penduline Tit, Ptarmigan, Spotted Sandpiper, Montagu's Harrier... all birds I've tried and failed for several times in the last few years, and man, does redemption feel good!  Now, if I can just get my eyes on a Capercaillie...

Worst dip: That bloody Needletail.  I was at Flamborough and driving back past Tophill Low when it was found.  I'd just got home when it was identified.  I missed it at Tophill.  It was refound and appeared to have roosted at Bempton.  I was there way before first light.  The bird had gone, with reports over Aberdeenshire.  Home.  Off to Scilly the following day, only to find that the Needletail was at Filey and then Scarborough, with no way to get there and severely gripped off by the amazing photos coming out while I was on the Scillonian.  What a miss.  

Close encounter: from the American Pipit that ran over my boot at Ross Sands, to the Black Stork walking just a few feet away, to the Western Sandpiper feeding around the tripod of my telescope, to the Dotterel in South Yorkshire, to the Desert Wheatear perching just the other side of the MOD fence, a Honey Buzzard low down enough to almost touch, there have been some birds invading personal space this year.  But the best of the bunch was the summer plumaged Laughing Gull that I watched for four hours in the sunshine in July at the beach at Penzance.  A completely unexpected bird for the year and it never moved further than 30 feet away from me during that whole time.  A joyous experience and a brilliant memory.

Unexpectedly missed: According to Bubo, compared to other year listers my top 10 expected birds that I missed were: Glaucous Gull, Red-backed Shrike, Booted Eagle, Least Sandpiper, Bonaparte's Gull, American Golden Plover, Richard's Pipit, Pallid Harrier, Brown Shrike and Red-breasted Flycatcher.  To be honest, the only birds on that list I'm surprised I haven't encountered were Red-backed Shrike and Red-breasted Flycatcher.

Best bits: this has been a year where the kindness of strangers has been really important to me; literally life-changing at times.  From a very difficult place at the start of the year, I've made some really good friends and more than any rare bird or wildlife encounter, the best thing about 2025 has been coming back to a community of birders that has helped me recover and encouraged me to get out more often and write more about what I see.  I'm grateful in a sort of spiritually open-minded sense for the opportunity to see the birds this year, but I'm grateful in a very real way for the people who have been there with me and without whom I wouldn't have had the best parts of 2025.