And we are offf...

New year, new list. And we are chasing 76.33 this year after the bonanza that was 2017. We are off to a good start too. We got birding on the 1st January despite a bloody cold, and we have managed to crawl our way to a woeful 49 species so far. That translates as 64.19% though. Over half way already. I feel it will be a long year. Highlights include jay and nuthatch. Oooh!

Ringing in the New Year

Well, last year dawdled to a close with a dismal showing on patch to leave me floundering off the podium for the first time in a long time.

Oh well... onward and... well, onward at least!

This year started well enough, but the highlight by far was when Seppy "helped" me re-identify a dubious scaup that turned up on the lake on New Year's Eve as a female ring-necked duck. SCORE!

Patch tick... and retrospectively my best patch find for 2017. As it stuck around until the 05 Jan it's also likely to be my best patch find of 2018.

Other highlights of the New Year so far included a female blackcap on my nuts one morning and a flock of a dozen or so wigeon on the lake. A greenfinch hopping about on my nuts this morning takes my tally to 49 for the year so far... or 55.11% in real money.

All of which sees The Mall in top spot... again... temporarily. #theonlywayisdown

2017 - this is the story

It is 30 years since we arrived on the scene with "This is the story" so it is appropriate that 2017 was the year of our highest chart position - numero uno! As noted by Seppy, our 114% score represents the first time we’ve won the precious Golden Mallard. We came close in 2013 but Reg did even better and we were third in 2016. And unlike the (unproven) accusations about Haddock’s big year, we are in the clear of accusation about low effort in previous years.

January was quite dull as ever, with little of note but in February all those hours checking our inland gull flock paid off when we scored Mediterranean gull. Two of them in fact. That represented the first of five patch ticks over the year. March saw us take top spot with 70%, and some convincing photographic evidence of the Med gulls. Chiffchaff was the first summer migrant of the year, and we landed it the same day that Bushveld has his first wheatear of the year.  About a month later we really scored with the second patch tick of the year - a lesser whitethroat in full song. Not a bad bird for Lothian.

A long summer silence ensued, broken by a few common gank and, of course, a documentary about our activities (see : This is the story), but nothing to come close to a specific swift. A July break took us to Ireland to check up on a few patches over there and get some inspiration. Basil did his best to slow us down with vast quantities of beer but we made it back to the safety of Boghall. About 6 weeks later, boy wonder Lachlan found a dotterel on my patch (trespass) which he then suppressed until he was safely having a cup of tea in a nearby cafe. However, as we were fortunately ‘working  from home’ that day, we got our third patch tick of the year. It was followed closely by an inland cormorant which slowly circled over the patch from Glencorse, making it four patch ticks for the year. Madness, but could we make it our year? It all depended on how good an autumn it was and...it was a crap one. Some the normal autumn bonanza failed to materialise for the competition while we kept going. Seppy tried hard to break back with both Melodious and Icterine warbler simultaneously, and a case of thrush.

A final big push was needed, and as Bushveld points out, we discovered the power of a telescope to nail the fifth and final patch tick of the year - mute swan. Cracking stuff, and before you scoff, Bushveld also ticked it for his patch this year. After a few beers Seppy was unable to find any issues with the claims. Jay, snipe and finally woodcock put the icing on the cake. And end this dull summary.

It’ll be tough the next two years, but we eagerly await the mallard arriving safely in the post from Royzah.

Happy birding all,

Craig and Charlie

2017 - what was got and what was not...

Well, the aim at the start of 2017 was to avoid the relegation zone and hopefully not end up in mid-table mediocracy.  I had dreams of finishing in a podium position and fantasies of actually winning the mythical mallard, but alas all to no avail.  The Procs late discovery of a telescope put an end to that, not helped by work effectively stopping me from hitting the patch for the whole of December.

So a summary of 2017... what was got.

There was an impressive 8 full fat patch ticks this last year.   There was, of course, that swift, back in early July but that only counts as one, as did the following seven new birds for the patch...

Mute swan
Scaup
Moorhen
Common sand'
Turnstone
Glauc
Icterine warbler


But what was missed, what stopped me from getting my mits on that mallard (aside from a quite ridiculous total by the Procs) .  Well, I managed to avoid lesser black backed gull (which is annual, but only just), I also somehow missed getting a coal tit or a barnacle goose, both of which is daft.  A general lack of migrants on the patch meant that I missed lesser whitethroat for the first year ever along with both spot and pied fly's.  And really, I should do more seawtaching for which there is no excuse.

But even if I'd got all the expected regulars and irregulars, could I have won.  Nope, not a chance, would have needed another 20 species, which just wasn't going to happen.

So here we are, at the start of another year and another challenge.  Only need 104 species to get a 100%, so should be easy and I'm nearly a quarter of the way there already.

Happy days and happy patch listing in 2018.

Bushveld

Prockies romp home with the Golden Mallard!!

Yes indeedy, for it is true - the birding twins from Boghall have finally won the Golden Mallard (still worth at least £50 on ebay) and in some style too - 114.74%!! That's the largest winning total ever, even higher than that sham of a year when Cap'n Haddock went for it after three years of drifting about the harbour in his rowing boat!

Anyway, for posterity, here are the 2017 scores on the doors - Ross Geller claimed a mistle thrush two days ago but was too pissed to recalculate his score but he's still second as it didn't affect the overall result. Rest assured, the powers that be shall insist that it is added to his 2017 score for target calculation purposes, as his initial "guesstimate" was well short of what it should have been....

Mr Derek Nimmo made the podium again, with a fine third place, which is quite frankly amazing given how much time he spends with his globetrotting these days. #alwaysonholiday

Basil Faulty was the best of the rest (just!), with no-one else getting near the 100% barrier. Questions have to be asked of the efforts of the lower placed contenders - I guess they forgot their log-in passwords again!

Happy New Year (list) to all 2018 contenders - Let the games begin again!

A scorecard, yesterday

The gift that keeps on giving

And that gift is Boghall in 2017. We were out last night on a nocturnal patch tour when we flushed a woodcock. We got it in the beam of our Stupidly Bright torch as it flew off. That makes 83 or 114.74%. The next few years will be tough. Five days to go - can we maintain our lead?

A "Tern" for the better in Clonakilty

Apologies for being slack with the posts. Its more a case of getting under Seppy's skin rather than sheer laziness. Although laziness has also played a large part in it s is clear from my spelling and grammar,

So the year started off pretty slowly with Cattle Egret and Ring-billed gull being the only birds of note in January. I moaned pretty constantly until April about how crap my patch was with Garganey and a Tufted duck the highlights until then. The only thought that kept me going was "at least i dont have Bazel's horrible inland patch"!

Then in April everything changed. As I looked out in to the bleakness that is Muckross Estuary during in spring, there shone a shiny beacon in the middle of the sand. One lone tern. and as it lifted from the mud and hawked its way towards me I knew straight away (well after at least two phone calls at least) that it was a Gull-billed tern. A rarer occurrence in county Cork than Grey-cheeked thrush i might add! The bird stuck around for a few weeks and there were reports of both Seppy and Basel pleasuring themselves as it they observed it hawking up and down the estuary. Disgusting behavior.

This was followed in very quick succession by a coot ( patch gold) and a find tick in the form of a cracking male Green-winged teal (which should never ever be lumped).

A hat-trick of yank waders got me through the autumn. The highlight for me was a White-rumped sand which was a lifer. This was followed by a lovely Baird's sand and a Semi-P Sand. Tinged only by the fact that I didnt find any of the yank waders ( Except for the semi-p kinda but that a whole other story).

That brings me to 126 species for the year so far and 106%. "Terns" out my patch is actually pretty awesome.

Ross