New Year's Birding 2026

January 1st 2026 at 6.52am and we pulled up at Leighton Moss.  Six hours earlier I'd been wishing my daughter a Happy New Year and trying to persuade her to go to sleep.  I was tired, but part of that was caused by the excitement of a new year of birding.  While 2025 was started alone, and New Years' Day cut short by a panic attack, 2026 started with friends and after the first two kilometres, a fervent desire for the gloves I'd left in the car.  We were making our way to Lower Hide on a quest to see as many species of birds as we could in one day.  Not for me this time, but for Lee; my year list is going to be a lackadaisical slapdash of hit and miss birding after last years' efforts - sorry if my Bubo total made you think I was going to be pushing hard again.

Tawny Owls called back and forth around us as we walked, and the sounds of a wetland waking up were increasingly loud.  Water Rails, Coot, Greylags and the deep coughs of red deer carrying under a misty moonlit pre-dawn were as evocative as it gets.  It's always a surprise just how much nature you can encounter before the light even begins to form in the sky, and anyone wanting a Big Day needs to start before first light rather than at first light.  By the time we had flushed a roost of Pheasants from a tree and a Woodcock had erupted from the bog to our left, we had already seen or heard over ten species.  Worth missing the lie-in, probably.

From the hide the serene ice-berg shapes of Mute Swans in the dark slowly gained resolution and we saw the first of the day's minimum count of ten Bearded Tits low down and close in against the long grass directly in front of the hide where a Cetti's Warbler wasn't happy with their presence.  There was common wildfowl in good numbers across the lake and we were watching Teal feed and interact with each other when there was a vast and strangely insectile sound as thousands of Starlings left their reedbed roosts at the same time.  A Sparrowhawk was amongst them immediately, clearly waiting for them from before daylight and planning an attack as they left the roost.  Streams of Little Egrets and a single Great White left their own roost and a young male Scaup dived repeatedly in the company of a pair of Coot.

By the time we left Leighton Moss we had seen around 50 species of birds and it was barely 9am.  We aimed straight for Gait Barrows where my recent birding had pinned down Hawfinch to a small number of favourite perches.  Of course, there was no sign of them today, and we had to settle for amazing views of Marsh Tits and Raven, Bullfinch and Jay.  We missed out on quite a few usually simple to find species, with no woodpeckers or sparrows of any kind at all.  Increasingly I have to go out of my way to see House Sparrows, and Tree Sparrows in the west are very hard to find.  A worrying trend.

A drive to Southport marine lake to see the long-staying first year male Smew gave me the best views I've had of this bird in four separate visits, and he fed well, diving amongst a group of Greylags near the footbridge over the south end of the lake.  The Twite flock near the outflow was almost all Linnets in reality, but there were a small number of Twite mixed in - hardly the flock of 70 I was expecting, but great to see in any numbers at all.  We had seen the Snow Goose (of unknown origin as I am obliged to write, despite not knowing the origins of literally any of the birds I've seen today) as we drove past Marshside on the way, and we followed news of Tundra Bean Goose (origins not required) to the far end of Crossens Outer Marsh, where we failed to see it.  Instead we watched four Russian White-fronted Geese (origins assumed to be fine) on the marsh with Pink-footed flocks, and picked up Ruff, Golden Plover and Black-tailed Godwit.  

Worrying about the time we made our way to Martin Mere and spent an hour not finding Bewick's Swans or Ring-necked Duck. It felt like our early morning fortune at Leighton Moss had abandoned us, leaving us with an absent series of birds we were counting on to push us to 100 species.  With time ticking we began to make our way to find the long-staying Glossy Ibis and the recent Short-eared Owl, but turned around at the realisation that we'd never get back before they locked the gates.  Lesson learned: Martin Mere before Marshside - they can't lock up 3 miles of coastline.  Happily our U-turn plonked us down in front of the Ring-necked Duck who continues to punt up and down the front of the Discovery Hide being bullied by Pintails.  The last usable light gave us brilliant views of this obliging bird, and the day list ended on 92 species.  Not bad.  We missed some gimmes that I expected given all my recent Lancashire birding (Hen Harrier, Merlin, Hawfinch, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Yellowhammer, Grey Wagtail, House Sparrow etc) but the good thing about this hobby is that whatever you don't see today you can look for tomorrow.

So that's a new year begun, and begun well in the company of friends and with as good a selection of birds as I could have asked for.  It's not about the number of ticks on a list, but about the things you will remember doing and seeing later in the year/decade/century (if we're lucky).  I won't forget that night walk through a reedbed alive with deer and ducks and darkness.  I won't forget how close the Bearded Tits and Smew and Ring-necked Duck were.   Today was the foundation of my nostalgia on New Years' Day 2027.