Weedon’s World
Once again, Mike was attempting to break the local record for a New Year’s Day list. How did he get on? Very well, thank you
Find out how Mike got on with his New Year’s Day ‘dash’
New Year’s Day ‘bird races’, or ‘big days’ or ‘dashes’ are challenging, especially compared with the spring equivalents. For one thing, the date is fixed in stone, there are no second chances. Plus, the weather is often appalling. Compared with May, there is hardly any daylight. And also compared with May, there are hardly any birds, with not a hint of the spring passage which brings those lovely summer migrants!
So, in landlocked places like the Peterborough Bird Club recording area, New Year can be very tough. Every year, we dream of reaching 100 species, and every year the elements and the birds align to deliver somewhere between 85 and (exceptionally) the late 90s.
On 1 January 2020, I was accompanied by my friend Hugh Wright, who, 20-odd years my junior, has the eyes of a hawk and the hearing of an owl. He is razor-sharp in the field. I produced the itinerary and did the driving, Hugh found the birds! I picked him up at 7am, as a Tawny Owl hooted in the distance.
We added Barn Owl on the way to Bedford Purlieus, our first stop. And, as we stood in awe of the silence in the dark, in this ancient woodland, on this still, mild morning, Hugh spotted a Woodcock overhead, which remains my bird of the day (despite what was to come).
We left that first locality at 8.30am, having bagged all the key woodland targets: Nuthatch, Marsh Tit, Jay and Siskin. A drive-by tick of a tried and tested Little Owl, and a Tree Sparrow on a garden feeder in the village of Helpston, took us to 50 birds by 9.30am.
One good thing about the New Year is that many birders are out there watching and listing. And we soon heard that a drake Smew, found over the Christmas period, had been relocated at the pit complex near the Lincs village of Baston. In a tree on the road on the way there, a couple of Corn Buntings were a bonus tick.
Smew duly ticked (and admired), we were free to explore some of the pits and ditches around the Baston and Langtoft complex, picking up such New Year riches as Shelduck, Stonechat, Green Sandpiper and Grey Wagtail, as well as an unseasonal Lesser Black-backed Gull eating a dead Brown Hare. We’d ticked 85 species; it was 11.30am.
Our next stop was 10 minutes away at Deeping Lakes LWT. I jumped out of the car to scan the east pit and pick up our first Pintail of the day, while Hugh exclaimed “Get on these two corvids!” It was a pair of Ravens passing by, and by way of celebration, the lead bird did one of those glorious display rolls, flying upside down for a few seconds.
There is a golden rule of Peterborough area bird racing: if you have reached a decent score by the time you hit the Nene Washes, you are in for a big one!
We approached the March Farmers viewpoint over the giant lake the Nene Washes has become (with recent flooding), already on 93 species and it was still only 1pm. Luckily, some quality bird-finding and relocating had already been done for us by former BW editorial team member Chris Jones (remember him?), and he had found a small flock of Scaup right out from the car park, as well as relocating a Red-necked Grebe found a day earlier. Hugh and I ticked the Scaup and started a forced march east for the grebe. A Peregrine flew over, a Dunlin called from a flock of Lapwings, a Cetti’s Warbler shouted from a nearby ditch, and half a mile later the Red-necked Grebe appeared in our scopes. We had reached 98 species for the day.
We were back at the car by 2pm, and parked up at the far east of the washes at Ring’s End at 2.15pm. Another forced march took us to a partially flooded field, packed with waders; hundreds of Black-tailed Godwits (99), dozens of Ruff (100), plus an exceptionally unseasonal Avocet (101) that Chris had found. We left elated, and drove west to Whittlesey to search for a Cattle Egret found before the major flooding. It was, thankfully, still present.
We finished the day at Eldernell, where Short-eared Owl and Crane took our list to 104 species. A lovely combination of perfect weather conditions, some fine ‘extra help’, a realistic itinerary and Hugh’s superhuman observational skills had allowed us to smash the previous record. Indeed, we were only c.20 species shy of our May day-record, when there are an extra seven hours of daylight, and spring migrants!
A good thing About new YeAr is thAt mAnY birders Are out wAtching