2020 Hindsight
Assistant editor Mike Weedon looks back on the how last year panned out for his local year list
Iam a serial year-lister. Since 2000, I have done nearly all my British birding in the Peterborough area (where I live). The ‘official’ Peterborough Bird Club recording area has got into my system and I became hooked on the local birds, mammals, insects, reptiles, and even the open, flat landscape. Since 2003, I have been recording a year list of birds I have seen and heard within the confines of the area.
As a long-time PBC year lister you may think that #My200BirdYear would make little difference. But, as it happens, the last three years have been comfortably my best ever for Peterborough birding (2018: 195; 2019: 191; 2020 189+), so perhaps following BW’s advice has helped.
Here is the story of my 2020 year listing around my Peterborough home, at least the best bits; plus some crudely disguised tips and advice.
Happy New Year
The New Year’s Day ‘Big Day’ has become a tradition with me, every year since the mid-noughties. In a few years, with the stars (and weather) aligned, I have seen/ heard more than 90 species on 1 January. But, at the start of 2020, despite the extensive flooding which turned the Nene Washes (a major birding area around here) into a vast lake, something felt good. It helped that my friend Hugh Wright joined me, as he is razor sharp.
We recorded Woodcock, Tawny Owl and Barn Owl before dawn, and we mopped up most regular woodland species within the first hour of light. One key tactic was covering areas with known goodies in place (eg the one lake with a Smew, or the single Cattle Egret at the edge of a particular flood). I had worked out an itinerary covering a range of habitats, from mixed woodland, through gravel pits, and open fens to those floods: all possible to work during the limited hours of daylight.
Then it was down to mopping up birds and focusing; remembering that there was a list-building purpose to the day, not just a nice day out! We also took advantage of some other locals’ finds, to add new eg. Scaup and Avocet to the Red-necked Grebe found a few days earlier. This helped us muster a massive 105 species in a day, which was a superb kickstart to the year, and easily my record New Year total.
Momentum
With such a good start, I wanted to keep the listing going, and in early January, I was lucky enough to find a winter Spotted Redshank, and I also relocated the Caspian Gull I’d found after Christmas, at the sewage works (south-east of the city).
One great help in local birding (and year listing) is having a network of other birders who share their finds. We have a Peterborough bird news WhatsApp group (on our phones). It was through this sharing of information that we get to see a lot of great birds which would pass us by, otherwise. There is only so much
ground a birder can cover. In 2020, I personally found 168 of the 189 species I have seen. So, that is 21 birds I might never have seen if it weren’t for other birdwatchers (and their generous sharing of info).
One of these is Tundra Bean Goose, and in mid-January, a nice flock of 10 were found near one of our big Whooper Swan flocks, in the east of the area.
The end of innocence
Come the start of March, none of us suspected that the disease we read was raging through China would have a profound influence on most aspects of our lives in the UK. I certainly didn’t, so I was doing what I always tend to do at this time: going in search of Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers. There was drumming, calling, pecking and chasing, and some of the best views I have had in recent years of these wonderful tiddlers.
Get them while there are still no leaves on the trees and at their ‘noisiest’ and most flirtatious. It helps, of course, if you know a nearby site where these much declined birds still survive.
Before the spring rush (and the start of ‘lockdown’), the superstar bird of March was a magnificent Rough-legged Buzzard, near Crowland, south Lincolnshire. These scarce winter visitors mainly turn up in the east (and far north), and the Peterborough area has been very good for them in the last half a dozen years (perhaps they like the hare-rich fens).
Into Lockdown 1
Before the end of March, the country was experiencing the COVID-19 lockdown. My office was now my kitchen (or the other way round) and we were greatly encouraged not to go out much, except for exercise. In pre- COVID days I used to cycle through Ferry Meadows CP, to get to (and from) the office, five miles away. So, in order to keep this daily exercise going, I developed a pre-work habit of cycling down to FMCP for a spot of birding.
Driving was frowned upon, so nearly my whole birding was now centred on this country park, easily reached by bike.
I am a huge fan of April. Summer visitors arrive in this month, and it is a key time for adding scarcer birds like chats, waders, scarce terns and Ring Ouzels to a year list. The pressure was on Ferry Meadows to deliver. Luckily, it is a great place, with a mix of woodland, a few lakes, scrub and grassland. And the whole package, lakes and all, are in a meander of the River Nene; so birds using the river as a migration route naturally cut the corner and call in to the lakes.
The first week of April delivered Little Gull, the second week Arctic Terns, the third Grasshopper Warbler and Black
I AM A HUGE FAN OF APRIL. SUMMER VISITORS ARRIVE IN THIS MONTH, AND IT IS A KEY TIME FOR ADDING SCARCER BIRDS LIKE CHATS, WADERS, TERNS AND RING OUZELS
Tern. And, in the meantime, the commoner migrants were taking care of themselves: hirundines, Common Tern, Common Sandpiper, plus some bonus Little Ringed Plovers in the park, and even a couple of Nightingales took up territory in the Hawthorn ‘scrub’, there.
Before April ended, I was taking slightly longer cycles at weekends, forever in search of good birds and mostly with my teenage son, Eddie. We got lucky, checking some suitable fields just a couple of miles from home, when we found a female Ring Ouzel. The third week of April is the peak ouzel finding time in this part of the country. But, if I miss this window, then I rarely see any Ring Ouzels after the start of May.
On 26 April, my cycling also added a very early Spotted Flycatcher and purring Turtle Dove to my year list. But it was Ferry Meadows which provided most of the action, with nasty drizzly, low cloud days generally being the best, such as on 29 April, when seven ‘angelic’ Arctic Terns dropped in, a Whimbrel ‘cut off the meander’ and a Hobby whizzed by.
May reigns in Hawthorn lands
May is even better than April (in some ways) and it started well for me finding a Wood Warbler singing at Ferry Meadows (as I cycled past, to take my bike to the nearby bike shop). These are less than annual around here (I have seen just five in 20 years) and demonstrate how it is good to keep your ears open, especially in May, the season of song.
This came home to me mid-month, when (lockdown having relaxed slightly), I had driven down to the Nene Washes to listen for night-singing Spotted Crakes (after a tip-off that one could be heard from a site called Eldernell, which overlooks the washes). As the sun set, I couldn’t hear any Spotted Crakes, but did here a far-carrying ‘weird trilling call’ which was totally unfamiliar to me.
It troubled me, but I got on with the job of Spotted Crake listening, and eventually heard one, as well as making some recordings of singing Tawny Owls.
Ten days later, I received a jawdropping phone call, saying that a female Little Crake had been singing the previous night on the Nene Washes. I checked the public bird sound site xeno-canto.org and the penny dropped. It was certainly the mystery bird I had heard before. And when I checked my recordings, I had even managed to pick up the singing Little Crake distantly when taping Tawny Owl!
It is a reminder that even at a site far inland, anything can turn up, especially if that ‘anything’ takes a fancy to the habitat.
Start of summer
The end of May was all about Quail for me. In the same area of south Lincs as the earlier Rough-legged Buzzard had been,
EVEN AT A SITE FAR INLAND, ANYTHING CAN TURN UP, ESPECIALLY IF THAT ‘ANYTHING’ TAKES A FANCY TO THE HABITAT