2013 ahoy!

Another year started, and like many disciplined serious birdwatchers, I spent the first day getting my year list off to a flying start...... Actually I didn't do this at all but spent it curled up in a heap watching films and eating pizza, nursing a well deserved hangover. I did see a couple of crows fly past the window a few times though.

I wasn't sure if I could be bothered with doing a year list again in 2013, as sometimes I feel it overrides the pure enjoyment of watching birds and I become slightly obsessed with looking for my next tick, but after very little thought I decided I would. I won't ever win any competitions with my lists, as I rarely venture outside Notts and lack the time and resources to go after rares or travel far and wide, but I do enjoy compiling my list and looking at what I have seen and what I'd like to see. Plus its nice to see it bulk up at the start of the year and then again when summer migrants arrive in spring, and passage migrants drop in in late summer.

I finished 2012 with 150 species seen, the first time I've broken the 150 mark, so I was happy with that, and I also managed a few lifers including Spotted and Pied Flycatcher, Scaup, Brambling and Nightjar. I've now seen some birds which although relatively easy to see, had eluded me in the past, so I think its going to get harder to get lifers from here on. I got a fair few more when I went to Portugal which obviously didn't make it onto the UK year list.

So yes. I'm doing another year list. Its only on 36 species thus far, as I've not been out properly yet, apart from doing a Core square for the BTO Winter Thrushes survey, which was in the middle of some pretty barren farmland, but which got me off to a start with species like Redwing, Fieldfare, Red-legged Partridge and Sparrowhawk. I'm planning a visit to Attenborough to hopefully get 50 or so in a day, and I'd quite like to find myself a Hawfinch, so may have to venture north to Clumber Park and maybe get a Lesser Pecker on the way.

To 2013!!!