#My200BirdYear sign up

Visit our website for all the advice you need to help boost your #My200BirdYear list!

All the online help you need to boost your #My200BirdYear list

Last issue, assistant editor Mike Weedon suggested all sorts of ways in which you could still complete our # My200BirdYear challenge in 2020, if you’ve only just discovered birdwatching or Bird Watching, or if your plans for the year have been thrown into confusion by COVID-19 (whose haven’t?).

You can catch up on all his tips and suggestions at https://bit.ly/2RbPruR, because if you start now, there’s still just about enough time to hit that 200 bird target ( but this really is your last chance!).

If you’d prefer to wait for 2021, to give yourself the best possible chance of seeing 200 bird speices in a year, you can still sign up now at https://bit.ly/3ieJxoF, and then spend the rest of 2020 doing some of the groundwork for next year.

For example, most winter visitors will remain in the same areas right throughout the winter, so the next three months are a good time to take note of exactly where large concentrations of wildfowl and waders are, and to make note of elusive species such as Bramblings and even Waxwings, if and when they turn up!

That will enable you to get your 2021 list off to a flying start, and you’ll be honing your skills and fieldcraft as you do.

Best of all, though, you’ll see more birds, and a greater variety of birds. Enjoy!

the coast, too, and Paul managed to add Little Stint and Ringed Plover to the list, as well as taking some nice images of species already photographed such as Dunlin and a juvenile Mediterranean Gull.

Rob’s time was limited this month, but record shots of a juvenile Little Ringed Plover and Woodcock were sufficient to tick two more species off the list.

Having gone back through all our photographic records for the year to double-check the numbers, we are delighted to confirm that our target for the year has now been reached with 151 species photographed in Hampshire, since the start of 2020.

The team will be continuing the challenge with renewed vigour now that the original target has been achieved. Perhaps 160 species is now a possibility as there is still plenty of time to go and some accessible species yet to be photographed, a list that includes Feral Pigeon! As autumn gets into full swing, there are some other Hampshire regulars the team will be targeting, as well as trying their luck with some rarities that may turn up as the migration season continues.

And who knows, with winter still to come before the end of the challenge, there may be time to track down a few of the winter arrivals, too.

Bird Watching magazine is donating £2,000 to Birds on the Brink for the Hampshire 150 Challenge and we would like to call on the support of the readers too. Visit the BPOTY website and follow the link to the Hampshire 150 page and click the donation link (donations taken via PayPal) You can also see some more of the images taken by the team as the challenge progresses. birdpoty.co.uk