Surrey v Northumberland Part 3

2018 still has a few weeks to run, but it isn't too early to cast one's eyes forward to next year and to plan for it. It's good to have projects in the pipeline and in some ways such things can add enjoyment and act as incentive to the time spent out in the field. And so, the first natural history project of 2019 can be revealed as...

Surrey v Northumberland (a tale of two patches.)

Stewart Sexton, (he of the most beautifully illustrated notebooks and a worthy blog) has agreed to a re-run of our two previous challenges - the results of which, I believe, is a score draw. Instead of straight forward annual totals, this time round we are going to compare the percentage that we record of our personal local patch lists. I'm going to enter two patches (if Stewart agrees). In reality one is just a smaller part of the other.

In the uber-patch (see explanation in box above) I have recorded 213 species since 1974. At times I have chased birds within it and, for long periods of time, have not. By my reckoning this can be broken down as such: 122 species that are almost guaranteed, 61 bonus species and 30 that I have only recorded 1-3 times. Within this patch are the two best local birding sites - Beddington SF and Holmethorpe SP.

The second is the mini-uber patch, created as a walk-from-home area. This is largely populated by ornithologically challenging habitat, although I have recorded 130 species within it. There is plenty of potential here.

Why enter the two patches? Well, part of me likes the idea of not clogging up the roads with the car and a desire to champion local birding as an antidote to the blind action of many birders who just follow the latest rarity. That type of birding is not for me, although I do understand why some pursue such activities as I have done so myself in the past. Although there is plenty to find and discover on our doorsteps for many birders this is just not enough - but for me the mini-uber patch delivers this. However, I will also collate my larger Uber-patch totals for 2019 as there are so many wonderful places within it that deserve coverage, such as the Hawfinch haunts of earlier in the year - but to get a competitive percentage figure from this I will need to visit Beddington and Holmethorpe (and be nice to my BFBG key-holder friends!)

Up in Northumberland, Stewart's Howick area list stands at 200 (since 2010) at an average of 143.2 species per year. He may have coast, but my compensation comes in birding across a larger area and possibly a more varied habitat mosaic.

I'm already looking forward to it...

Comments

Unknown said…
This has inspired me to look at areas north of Holmethorpe and south of Chaldon that I reckon could produce a few goodies.
15 November 2018 at 20:37
Unknown said…
This is Neil R btw, commenting using my work email!
15 November 2018 at 20:48
Steve Gale said…
Neil, it is such a rewarding way to bird watch. There is the sense of pioneering an area and finding out just what turns up. I cannot recommend it enough. After 'discovering' Canons Farm I have been searching for another ornithologically unknown place and might have found one at Mogador - close to you and worth investigating. I'd urge you to give this type of birding a go.
15 November 2018 at 20:59
Stewart said…
Ooh, he's gone public! Right I have updated my stats. They are...Total Patch List that I can find is 205 sp of which I have seen 200, missing White billed Diver, Red Kite, Leaches Petrel, Turtle Dove and Water Pipit. Of the 205 they can be broken down into 128 Common, 22 Uncommon Irregular, 18 Scarce and 37 rare. So it looks like we are quite similar really, especially for the common stuff. Lets hope we both get a classic 12 months!
16 November 2018 at 16:57
Steve Gale said…
It's going to be fun! Good luck, but easy on the Barred Warblers...
16 November 2018 at 17:15
Stewart said…
I'm due another... seriously, 'rares' have been very slow on patch in recent years... 2019 will be the year!
19 November 2018 at 19:38
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