The commonest species not on your list, list

When something 'big' turns up, if you want to see it, 90% of the time you can. Eastern Crowned Warbler, Citril Finch, Purple Martin, if you had the time, money and inclination, and didn't sit on your hands for 48 hours weighing up whether to go for it or not, then it would be on your list. Most serious listers have all three (and then a few more). Most of the 'part-time' listers of the UK mainland might not island-hop, but will still take a long drive to Flamborough or Nanquidno to knock-off that missing warbler, pipit or yankee warbler. This means that we have a large pool of birders with almost identical lists (most will be missing at least one mega that arrived when they were on holiday abroad - and 550 ticks in Uganda still don't make up for that Long-tailed Shrike). We do now have a number of extreme seabird records that have meant major gaps appearing in the listers list (Tufted Puffin anyone?)

As for me, I have plenty missing from my UK list. A veritable bonanza of 'missing in action' species, most obviously Green-winged Teal, Lesser Scaup,Snowy Owl, Red-throated Pipit, Thrush Nightingale... I could go on.

But. These aren't the real gaps. Those species that are assumed to be on your list, but have somehow evaded you for more years than you care to own up to. Today I launch my latest list - the list that all birders can be judged by - 'The commonest species not on your list, list'. It's more fun to know what others are missing rather than what they've seen. Just as bad news is more captivating than good news, the fact that a UK500 lister might still 'need' Capercaillie is much more interesting than their complete set of UK larks and pipits.

So, my four most laughable blanks are:

Capercaillie (looked, dipped, haven't even heard one), Corncrake (not visited any breeding areas and haven't flushed a migrant), Cory's Shearwater and Great Shearwater (hundreds of hours spent seawatching, but 99% of it in Kent). There, I'm outed. It didn't hurt and it's strangely cathartic. Go on, give it a try...

Comments

Stewart said…
Steve try this -

White Stork (unringed), Serin, Savi's.

Then its rarities - Red throated Pipit, Sprosser, Western Bonelli's...

(Seriously mate, Green winged Teal! You must get out more ;)
13 September 2010 at 20:35
Graham James said…
As you know Steve, I am no twitcher but I can't understand why Hawfinch has eluded me for nigh-on 30 years!
13 September 2010 at 21:34
John Young said…
A pattern emerges, Cory's Shearwater for me as well and I have spent many hours and days seawatching in Kent....hmmm!
13 September 2010 at 21:49
Kingsdowner said…
According to my I-Spy birds book, the commonest birds not yet on my list are Caparcaillie and Black Grouse (only 50 points each).
But as a Kent seawatcher, petrels are a real omission.
13 September 2010 at 23:14
Anonymous said…
Mine as got to be Storm Petrel. Which is embarrasing, considering some of the species i have seen.
14 September 2010 at 05:36
Tony Morris said…
As it is confession time, the two big Shearwaters are my blanks (unless the Bilbao ferry has a surround of British water). Notable absentees also include Roller (opportunities but too idle) and Alpine Accentor, one occurred here in 2000, just before we moved in).
14 September 2010 at 08:12
Steve Gale said…
It seems to me as if grouse and shearwaters are a reoccuring theme. Thanks for outing yourselves chaps!
14 September 2010 at 19:54
Stewart said…
You can tell where a person lives by their omissions ... not many shearwaters or grouse in Kent, Stormies inland and even less Serins in Northumberland.
15 September 2010 at 23:07
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Goldfinches and Lavender

Image
We have three medium-sized Lavender bushes in our back garden. Throughout the summer the flowers (which last for several months) are a magnet for insects and give off a most restful aroma. As tempting as it is to cut the dead stems in the autumn, we always leave them, as we know that during the late winter we will get visitors to feed on the seed heads... This video was taken from the kitchen window this morning. We will normally see one or two birds over a few days, but have had up to 14 at once. We never tire of watching them. Lavender is a wonderful plant to have in the garden, with year round natural history benefits. So what are you waiting for? They are readily available at a garden centre close to you right now! There is an historic association with Lavender in this part of northern Surrey and south London. Lavender fields have been harvested for many years, with one particular field close to Woodmansterne being very popular with day trippers. A significant proportion o...
Read more

Welcome back!

Image
In November 2005 I purchased a pair of Swarovski 10x42 EL binoculars from The London Camera Exchange shop in Guildford, for the then princely sum of £899. These bins have served me well, with almost daily use in all types of weather, testing their durability to the maximum - salt water spray, deluges of rain, 38C temperatures, dust, dirt, slight knocks... and apart from the armour coating that had started to bubble and come away from the body, nothing to be alarmed about. Then, in the summer of 2022, I noticed that I had a problem when close focusing - the outer focusing wheel would lose grip and it would take me an age to regain a middle-ground distance of focus - plus, over the next few weeks this outer focusing wheel became loose. I resorted to the use of tape to keep it all in place, but realised that I had to do something about it in the long run. For a while I did consider buying a new pair - after all, they were then 17-years old - but they were still optically superb. It seemed...
Read more

A special day

In birding, timing can mean the difference between an average day in the field and that of a spectacular one. Good timing can be helped by reading the weather conditions correctly, or understanding local conditions but it is more often down to pure luck. In this case, I just got lucky... I had not visited Dungeness since March 2022, quite a gap for me. It was high time that I once more trod the shingle and my timing of a visit was down to several factors, mostly a personal liking for mid-late autumn but also because I needed to be at home until September 20th and could not make the journey south until then. I also chose to stay at the bird observatory for a few days rather than make it a day trip. All this conveniently found me stepping outside the observatory's back door in the breaking dawn of Sunday 22nd September, quickly making my way to the fishing boats, an area I prefer to stand to best appreciate any visible bird migration, an aspect of birding that I find exhilarating.  A...
Read more