Even more finch fun

Hot on the heels of Seppy's earful of bull this morning, a quick look around Squince this lunchtime was at risk of producing yet another blank on the year tick front.... 

In a last-ditch attempt to salvage something from the visit, I was scanning a monster finch flock on the opposite side of the lagoon (desperate times... etc.), concentrating on the chaffinches, just on the off chance like. 

Mere seconds before Sybil put her foot down and insisted we leave, a fine Brambling gave itself up, offering decent views before getting lost again amidst the hubub. Huzzah!

That welcome finchly tickage nudges me to 103.94%, and crucially means Seppy still needs three (count 'em) species to overtake me at the top of the podium. It's a big ask, but the way that chancer keeps banging them in, it's certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility.

Is a non-Irish Irish one-two on the cards? Will Reg pull something spectacular out of the bag to spoil the party? Could another cagey fecker be waiting in the wings with a sackful of undeclared guff?

Cripes... it's almost exciting!

Lets take a look at what ya could have won....

 Yes indeedy - bully's special prize this very am consisted of a heard-only bullfinch in the vicinity of the garden - called 5 or 6 times so I'm having it

Warming up nicely at both ends!

Yes indeedy, as the 2024 patch challenge nears the December endgame, there have been developments at both ends of the leaderboard and nothing is set in stone with a little over a month to go.

Basil continues to stand out by his gate, trying desperately to thumb a list down to Squince. But I'd have to be totally stupid to fall for his sob stories again, after the last time.

Reg managed to leapfrog into 2nd place, while Bushveld has come from seemingly nowhere, with no prospects straight into 3rd place with some frankly outrageous stories of having been seawatching. As if!

Luckily tho, he reckoned without the power of the Majik Patio (tm), which produced the all-important goods for me on me birthday (thurs), in the form of a fine female goldeneye, which appeared to disappear shortly after I'd nailed it. Lucky! This pushes me through the near-mythical 100% barrier, whole also keeps me just ahead of Bushveld, and even better, restores me to third place and him in fourth - huzzah!

The biggest mover and shaker of the week has been Shakey, who was also moved to try a Storm Bert-related seawatch yesterday, and who managed to claim a frankly outrageous SIX (count 'em) year ticks - leach's petrel, sooty shearwater, red-necked grebe, great northern diver, long-tailed duck and a goldeneye, which was probly my bird from thurs. This has pushed him ahead of the proclaimers who now take up the lantern rouge and the wooden spoon and who have admitted in a quote yesterday that "it's been a poor year here, despite effort". A bit vague on precisely how much effort has been expended tho hey?

STOP PRESS - some last minute news from Royzah who has just had a collared dove in his garden, which is seemingly patch gold round his way. Not only that, Royzah then managed to tapdance his merry but slightly hungover way along the Donmouth boardwalk just in time to connect with 3 (count 'em) little auks and a little gull, so he's moving up the scoreboard too, but probably not sufficiently to trouble Mr Nimmo of Wanstead who is still happily ensconsed in mid-table mediocrity.

All to play for then - I'd best go for a seawatch...

***Post-Seawatch Update***

A fine leach's petrel heading slowly east off Galley late morning - only my 3rd wan evah off Galley, after 2 on a seawatch in Sept 2022. Moves me back into second spot just ahead of Reg but for how long???

They should be annual...

 A sneaky little sea-watch yesterday morning before work produced 11 little auks and 3 long-tailed duck.  

My last (and only) little auks on patch were 5 January 2016 and the long-tailed duck were only my third record.  They should be annual, but only if I got out more.

These two push me past 100% and into a podium position.  With time running out there seems little prospect of retaining the Golden Mallard but still requiring brambling (a 100% er, recorded every year) plus hopefuls for coal tit and woodcock, there's always a chance, albeit a slim one.

122 species, 

100.27%

Happy Days

Bushveld

Reg Reveals All

 Yes indeedy - that got your attention hey? Should get a few more page hits too with any luck. Anyway, suffice it to say Reg has not been resting on any laurels and is still giving it 110% right up to the years end. Its beginning to pay off too as he had little auk and lapland bunting over the weekend, whilst also adding quail to the list after claiming one back in the summer (whatever that really was...).

In a bid to put the frighteners on Basil, he's also claiming that Jack Snipe, Velvet Scoter, LEO, Snow Bunting, Glauc, Iceland gull and slav are all virtually nailed on before the 31st Dec....

All to play for then, as it gets that little bit tighter at the top. Reg needs just four species to catch Basil, while Seppy still requires five, which is probably a stretch at this stage, but ya never know. #Believe

Thanks for the boost chief! 👍

Incapacitated as I am by only having one leg at present, getting down to the patch, and moving around to actually do any meaninful birding is proving a challenge.

That said, press-ganging various family members into taking me birding on mental health grounds hasn't been entirely fruitless. Indeed, this very Thursday just gone -- on my birthday, no less -- I managed to cajole Sybil into a jaunt down to the patch, yielding a fine male Shoveler on the lake.

Shoveler on the lake... majik... well, for a duck, at least.

And it's not just the family stepping up. In all fairness, credit where credit's due and all that jazz. Seppy has been a rock through this journey of hardship and slow recovery.

A smallish, somewhat reluctant rock, it has to be said, but he has occasionally succumbed to my repeated badgering to give me the odd spin for a cursory look around the patch. In spite of his valiant efforts to suppress as much as humanly possible, these mini-sojourns have yielded an immpressive total of two (count-em) year-ticks over the last five weeks or more. The first, a fine Yellow-browed Warbler -- my first of the autumn, and, much to my driver's chagrin, a splendid Dabchick this last Sunday.

Fair play!

My unfortunate affliction, and the fact I've been unable to skive off and hit the patch at will while everyone else is at work, means I have no doubt missed legions of migrants passing through this autumn. Despite the hardship, the slim pickings that have turned up take the tally to a respectable 103.15% as we enter the final stretch.

Game on!

Desperate times...

 I got a message from the boss to update the Blog, but if only there was something worth updating.

With the three patch ticks in September: Sooty shear, red-breasted berg and a yellow-browed. And a meagre total of five: barnacle goose, jack snipe, redwing, missile thrush and goldcrest in October, the patch total creeps up to 120 species and 98.63%.

Alas, time is running out but with a bit of effort and a following wind there's still potential to sneak past the 100% mark before the year is out.

Happy days

Bushveld 

Overdue but under performing

 Boghall has been quiet since May. And I mean that as the birds have been absent. Snipe and a few common migrants are about it. This means we are at 89.5% with 77 species. Desperate.

Hotting up for the podium spots!

 Yes indeedy - moving swiftly on, nothing to see at skwinse anyway but LOTS to see at Galley! A mid-pm scan of the lake produced first an incredulous male pochard, and then as the scan continued, a noteworthy male wigeon and a kingfisher, before finally alighting on a frankly outrageous black-necked grebe! My first on patch since 2009 and my 5th wan evah!

Marvellous!

Proof-of-life evidence as follows:

A black-necked grebe, earlier

And some more

A pochard, earlier

Either way, it was absolute scenes on the Majik Patio (tm)!

In other news, Reg has been kind of banging them in up at Collieston, although he did rather over-dramatically announce that it had been an "Awful birding autumn for me ( literally worst I can remember!)" before admitting that he'd also only just got his first Great Northern of the year....

All to play for then, for those podium places....

Seppy's Scrutineering gets out of hand

 

It's all lies (admits Sepp Blatter, on any date you'd care to nominate).

 

In a shocking (but perhaps not surprising) turn of events, Seppy stooped to an all new low in October when he hijacked a draft post by an honest and rule-abiding participant in this esteemed competition and manipulated it to his own ends.

This post (for it was this very missive) was about to highlight Seppy's illicit and unscrupulous conduct as he shifted the metaphorical goalposts mid season, altering targets and massaging statistics in a most unsportsmanlike fashion to suit his own nefarious ends. 

What did the self-appointed Adjudicator General's meddling consist of, I hear you cry? He unilaterally decreed that the yearly average for Squince this season be recalculated northward, dropping the first year's estimated patch total and basing the target on just a 2-year rolling average.

OUTRAGEOUS!

The reason for this spontaneous mid-season recalibration? It seems he was finding it too hard to keep up. Net result: my target for 100% rose by almost two whole species, from 125.33 or some such to 127.

So where does that leave us? Down, indeed, but not quite out... yet.

Despite a busted ankle (which made scouring the patch nigh impossible over the entire autumn), Yellow-browed Warbler was a welcome addition to the year-list over the last month. Add the Gadwall and a flock of fly-over Skylarks from Sunday and my new (artificially suppressed) percentile has tottered up to 102.36%. So still in front... just, despite Seppy's cheating.

Roll on the Ducks, Gulls and Waders. Yippeeeeeee!

On-patch twitching

 Yes indeedy, sometimes the luck falls to others and all you can do is twitch stuff found by other people on your patch. Ah well - it made for a fun day on Sunday anyway with some great birds on patch! I'd been out since early doors, taking advantage of the extra hour but hadn't really seen much other than a handful of blackcaps and a few chiffchaffs. 

I was just nearly done checking the last bits of the patch when I got the news of a pallas's warbler in Dirk. Old spoons had reckoned he'd had a brief glimpse of one on Weds so this wasn't entirely unexpected but when I got there it had vanished once again. Whilst talking to the finder, he suddenly pointed and said "Isn't that a red-breasted flycatcher up there?!?"

And it was...

A red-breasted flycatcher, yesterday

After a while, we managed to get on the pallas's warbler, even getting some validatory evidence...

ooooof, boooom etc

The theme has continued right up to this very am, when I received a text message alerting me to the presence of a female/imm surf scoter on Long Strand. Indeed and it was even visible from the Majik Patio (tm), meaning not only a FULL FAT PATCH TICK but also a "from the garden" tick - result!

Alas, the record shot leaves a little to be desired...

A surf scoter, yesterday - 229 for Galley!

I even went and brought Basil and his gammy leg over to the Majik Patio (tm) so he could validate it this afternoon. With a bit of luck it might get in with the 9 common scoter that are knocking around and hang about into the new year....