The year in numbers

At the start of this year I wondered if I would be able to see 1000 species by the end of it. A 'Big Year' of sorts, but with my own little target, nothing like these frankly bonkers global missions where somehow one person sees 7000+ species in a single year. It has taken me a lifetime to see somewhere around 2500, I just don't get it. As per usual I had a lot of travel planned but no, 1000 would suit me fine. Previously my best annual effort was 781, achieved last year and in no small measure due to having spent a week on a guided birding trip in Colombia.

To cut a long story short I didn't make it, and even with a month left to go I knew I wouldn't. But I did come pretty close - 960 at the time of writing, completely obliterating my previous total but nonetheless falling short of that nice round number I had hoped for. Oh well, it is only a number. I half thought about doing another trip just to get over the threshold but dismissed it as silly and frivoulous, a rare instance of self control. I am exceptionally fortunate to be able to travel as I do, and it's very self-indulgent. Then again it's one of the principal reasons why I work where I work. But you knew that, I covered it a few weeks ago. Anyway, I didn't quite manage it but I will simply try again next year, something to aim at and as you would expect I already have a few things lined up. 

With apologies to those who hate flying, frequent flyers, airplanes and any other mode of transport apart from a bicycle, above is a map with a breakdown of where I went in 2023. I didn't mention this in the post I referenced above as that wasn't the thrust, but a few years ago I had a long think about how much I fly. This was during COVID when I wasn't going anywhere and was rather depressed about it. When the world re-opened would I resume, or would I be so used to seeing nothing and going nowhere that I could just give it up? Over the course of a few weeks I wrote a mammoth blog post as I agonised about my personal contribution to global warming called "The Elephant in the Room". This contained all of the good things that I did for the planet, all of which were then rendered completely redundant by taking just a single flight anywhere. It was full of arguments, counter-arguments, contradictions and despair, and when it came to it publishing it I instead just deleted it in a strop. With myself, and with mankind's seeming inability to see beyond one week in the future. Bottom line it is a lot of travel for an individual when compared against the average. I don't know how these things are calculated but if a person takes just one flight it likely uses up their entire annual 'carbon budget' or close to it. Then again I'm told that even driving a modest car around the UK a fair bit has the ability to do that. Of course I take many more flights than just one a year but after beating myself up for a couple of months I concluded two things. 1) That the only way to actually stop contributing to global emmisions is to essentially stop doing almost everything. 2) Even if I and my entire family immediately went and lived off-grid in a cave it wouldn't change the outcome in any way. We're pissing in the wind, fiddling in the margins. The world is going to continue to heat up with or without me, the planes - more and more of them - are going to fly regardless of whether I am on them or not, and frankly we are all screwed and nothing is going to stop that and certainly not the actions of an individual or even a family. It comes down to this - I enjoy travel above pretty much everything else. I could stop but then I'd be miserable, and I see no point in being pointlessly miserable. Moral superiority perhaps, but at what cost? That's where I'm at. One day, when I have the time, I am going to do some very long voyages by train and by car. I've been reading about long-distance train trips across continents and they sound incredible. Right now I don't have the time, so I fly places. 

I've read the counter-arguments to my stance and I agree with a lot of them. Call me irrational and selfish (or less charitable things) but they don't change my view on individual flying, or indeed the wider picture as it's not just aviation that is the problem regardless of what some would have you think. The complexity of what we face and the morass of inter-related themes is mind-boggling, but flying, which is measurable and where individuals can exercise a choice, is a soft and understandably popular target. Actually more carbon emissions come from commercial shipping, much of it to support all the crap we don't need but buy anyway. And as for coal-fired power plants across the globe, well we might as well all give up. My own "What the hell is the point?" moment came from one particular visit to America a few years back. I had just arrived and it was dark. I was headed away from the city along a six or seven lane highway (each direction) that was bumper to bumper with cars, many of them gigantic SUVs. Alongside both sides of the highway were a sea of illuminated signs for an almost infinite number of fast food joints, car and truck dealerships, fuel, shops and megastores, personal injury lawyers, you name it it was on a sign, just extraordinary levels of consumption and consumerism. Planes were coming into land overhead one a minute and I had this realisation that this was the current day incarnation of Bladerunner. Was I in LA? I can't remember, but the scene surrounding me felt semi-dystopian and it went on for miles and miles. And I knew that not only was it like this night and day, but that it was like this in every major city across the country. I just saw this same road stretching across the States and felt insignificant and helpless in the face of it. Fair enough on that particular evening I might have been a part of it, but for the vast majority the time I wouldn't be here. But the traffic still would be, the fast food places, the gas stations, the strip malls, the fumes, the noise and the excess, it would run continuously. Deep down I knew that nothing could change America or anywhere else quickly enough to make a difference. Some people might witness this and return home to become a hermit. I took a different path, not one of denial exactly but one of resignation. Critics can say that I gave up because the alternative was too hard, that I took the easy and selfish route, buried my head in the sand. Fine, I did and I have. I can't justify it, who can? Feel free to flay me in the comments because I dare to acknowledge it.

So yes I continue to travel by air, and despite all the above I find it incredibly liberating. As I have mentioned before I plan each of these trips meticulously, I get almost as much enjoyment from the planning as I do from the executing of the plan. Travel is also not always straightforward, but I get a perverse kick from being able to navigate through non-straightforward situations and still make it work. One day it will no doubt all do wrong but that day has yet to come, and 2023 was actually a pretty easy year. Here it is in bird count form.

USA - 258. I went to America three times this year. An expedition to Hawaii in April which also included a morning in California. Five days in New England in May was all about birding, and I then had five days in Ohio visiting family in September. It's my biggest ever year list for the States and I saw 31 new ABA species.

Colombia - 184. I went again, but to visit friends and experience some real Colombia, chilling out with a large extended family. I did have a day being guided near Bogota at the very start, but this was mostly a non-birding trip if such a thing exists in my lexicon. Most of the time was spent in the lowlands towards the start of the Llanos, hot and humid, and teeming with birds. Many were just seen from a garden or a pool, beer in hand....

Mexico - 167. Mick and I went on a fun trip early on in the year to Cancun and explored the jungles towards Belize and Guatemala using the Mayan ruins as entry points into pristine forest. It was hot and difficult but extremely rewarding - Ocellated Turkey anyone?

Argentina - 150. Another non-birding trip, ahem....A week with Mrs L in Buenos Aires in October somehow netted an amazing number of birds. What can I say? Well, for starters Costanera Sur, an urban reserve within the city, is simply fabulous and is responsible for most of them, but we also went south of the city for a day out. This is as yet not written up, I ran out of steam after.....

South Africa - 146. I took two of the kids on safari in July. Although the primary focus was mammals, there are also a ton of birds in the Kruger and the trip report probably contained as much on them as it did Lions etc. A fabulous country, utterly beautiful.

Greece - 89. I spent a weekend around the Gulf of Corinth in January exploring ancient sites and birding some coastal marshes.

Iceland - 66. Another long weekend on the west coast. Dreadful weather probably didn't limit the total - there just aren't many birds in Iceland.

Canada - 53. This was the same trip as New England, I just started and finished in Montreal instead of, say, Boston, because flight timings worked a little bit better and I fancied spending a bit of time in Canada.

Croatia - 51. A weekend in the spring, a country tick and I saw a few birds at the same time as exploring Zagreb on foot.

Portugal - 41. My son and I spent a weekend in Lisbon, and then Mrs L and I went to Madeira. The low species count is evidence that I don't just go birding everywhere.

France - 34. A walking holiday in the Alps over the August Bank Holiday weekend with my friends from university. We were in Chamonix but started in Geneva, so the Switzerland count is from the same trip.

Spain - 30. I flew to Colombia from Madrid. Air Traffic Control meltdowns meant I had a day in Madrid rather than an hour, so I decided I would go birding, you know, just to do something a bit different...

Switzerland - 16. As above.

Hungary - 11. Birds seen from Budapest airport as part of the Hawaii trip. As I think I've explained before for some crazy reason it is significantly cheaper to depart from various European cities than London, so that's what I do. Airlines (or Governments) need to sort their shit out and disincentivise this, rather than positively incentivise it.

UK - 201 I spent most of November and December inching towards 200 and just cleared the hurdle in Fife with a Black Redstart. Many people see this number by the end of April, indeed when I spent more time away from the local patch there were years when I did too. This year most of my UK birding was local, and so 113 of the 201 were here in Wanstead. This is very slightly over the average, my eighth highest total out of the 15 years I've been keeping score.

Wanstead through the Ages

Nationally, I went on just five twitches in 2023, two more than in 2022. One of these was a dip in Kent where I sat in a hide listening to inane conversation for five hours. Fun times. The others were successful though and I added five new birds. In May the Grey-headed Lapwing in Northumberland en route to the Stejneger's Scoter in Fife, which in turn was en route to my parents who live there. I then surprised myself by going to Wales in September for the Magnolia/Canada duo, and finally in November I went to Essex and Norfolk on successive weekends for the Canvasback and Pallid Swift respectively. I enjoyed all these days out considerably but I still reckon my twitching days are more or less over. You have no idea how difficult I find it to motivate myself to get in the car.

Globally I added 233 new species to my life list. The Nearctic dominates heavily, as it always seems to in my case - I nearly always head west rather than east for some reason, probably my heritage. I need to try and change that but I have to say I am becoming heavily addicted to South American birding, a dangerous thing.  It is just so ridiculously good. What is interesting about the above (to me at any rate) is that of all of those days away just two days were spent with professional bird guides, and between them they didn't even contribute 80 species that I didn't see elsewhere by myself. I reckon that's pretty good going and something I want to try and continue to do. Roll on 2024.

In terms of checklists and my contribution to citizen science through eBird I've had my second-most productive year, with 632 checklists submitted. I'd do it anyway of course, even without the research aspect of it, but equally it does make it feel less pointless. A lot of people scoff at lists, say they're pathetic, silly, but each singing Song Thrush I dutifully record ends up being part of a wider effort and contributes to our understanding of what is happening to our wildlife. 228 are from the UK, of which 129 are from London, all but 7 from Wanstead. This pales in comparison to the 'lockdown' year, 2021, when I submitted over 300 checklists from my local area. In total I've submitted over 1600 lists within a mile of my house, and next year could see me submit my 1000th checklist for Wanstead Flats alone - that is true dedication.

Elsewhere I submitted 54 lists for Fife, and then a further 45 from other parts of the country, mostly East Anglia from a few day trips out to Essex and Suffolk. Further afield I submitted 144 lists in the USA, 48 in Mexico, and 46 in Colombia. Birding abroad is rather different, and the same amount of time birding will generally contribute far more lists than in the UK as I move between sites, often submitting over 10 lists in a day. Back home it will likely be just one, probably before work, and even on a weekend it will mostly just be a single visit to Wanstead Flats. I really go for it when I'm away, and it is no exaggeration to say that eBird has transformed how I bird. Where I need to do better is with media - adding photographs and sound recordings to the lists. That requires a lot more time as it generally can't be done on the fly. And it's also true that my photography has waned this year, again this is likely due to eBird emphasising recording of species as numbers rather than as media, but it can of course be both with a little extra effort. Let's see. I am starting off 2024 with what I hope will be a photography intensive trip away, with any luck it will rekindle a spark that I have been missing. I thought about doing a "best photos of 2023" post but realised I would struggle to even get to ten. How things change! What I probably could manage is my top ten bottles of wine, but although that would fulfil the brief of a year in numbers, it might be a little over the top even for this blog.

And what of this blog then? When I was trying in vain to find the post about climate change I discovered a draft post signalling the end of this blog, a big goodbye of sorts, penned a few months into 2020 and coinciding with the start of the dark days of COVID. I never published it for some reason, perhaps the simple act of typing it got me over whatever it was, and somehow that year I managed to eke out around 100 posts. This year it finishes with this one, the 103rd. Remarkable that I had the stamina, it came in a rush at the very end. As I write this this in late December 2023 there have been 2.42 million clicks (since 2009). Not quite the latest Taylor Swift video, but for a boring middle-aged man with comensurately boring hobbies..... Of these 220,000 came in the last 12 months, slightly under 10% of the total, but under 5% of the content. Should I read anything into that? Maybe, maybe not - I still think that blogging is dead/dying.

Per the stats the most read post this year was about Hummingbirds in St Lucia, which I wrote over ten years ago. There is nothing quite like being relevant I suppose. That's an anomaly though as after that they're all from this year, with - gratifyingly on one level - an innocuous post from the patch about seeing a Sedge Warbler in the same bush as a Garden Warbler. In third place was a post about new birders on the patch and how  to deal with an understandable tendency for over-excitement and related over-reporting. Wren! So two out of three about the patch is reasonably telling, shame it is so dull most of the time. Seeing as we are here, number four was about the aforementioned Stejneger's and White-winged Scoter double, and the fifth was that one also referenced above where I railed against being told to shut up. If I ever seem to be in danger of quitting, just make me angry.

So those are a few of the numbers from 2023 - birds, countries, lists, trips, posts and patch.  

Happy New Year! 

2020 on the patch and in lists

At the end of last year I began an equivalent post bemoaning my feeble efforts on the patch. I was reconciled to it I think, I have no desire to be restricted by that particular variety of nobility. Fast forward twelve months and neither do I now, Wanstead Flats simply does not have anywhere near the breadth of birding that I need or am satisfied with. However for much of this year it has been about all I have been able to do and I am truly thankful that it is as good as it is. There are better places to live for birding but it could be a lot worse. 2020 was the year of the patch or nothing.

And for some parts of the year it really was nothing! But I am a birder, and birders cannot not bird. No matter where they are or what they are doing birders are always tuned in to movement and to sound, to the bushes, the trees and the sky. I channeled this in a big way in 2020, mostly from the bedroom balcony which overlooks our garden and the surrounding neighbourhood. With the additional potency of NocMig my garden list went ballistic. Tawny Owl, Moorhen and Coot were common, but surprisingly there were multiple instances of Oystercatcher and other waders. Soon I was to be found not in bed asleep, but out on my balcony, wrapped up and listening for calls in the dark. With snacks. It surpassed my wildest expectations. I added - 'live' - Common Scoter (along with most of the country it seems!), Whimbrel, Little Owl and Common Sandpiper. The ones that got away whilst I was sleeping included Little Grebe, the aforementioned Oycs, Green Sandpiper, and most amazingly of all, a Quail!

Away from heard-only, long vigils in the early morning, or on conference calls during the day, allowed me to pick up Tree Pipit, Reed Bunting, Crossbill, Siskin, several Short-eared Owls, Raven, Marsh Harrier (thanks Nick!) and astonishingly a Curlew!  My garden list, static for two years, jumped from 82 species to 93. 

The same story played out on the patch. After 16 years of living here adding patch ticks is supposed to be quite hard, but all the additional time in situ unsurprisingly paid dividends - Whimbrel over the vizmig point, Common Cranes from the same spot. My patch list total is now 159 - when I first started birding here and saw what long-standing patch workers at places like Dagenham Chase had racked up I rated my chances of ever attaining those dizzy heights as non existent. Similarly when I first moved here one of my early year lists was about 70. This year I picked up all the usual migrants as well as some of the birds I missed in 2019 like Common Tern and Shelduck, and with the White-fronted Goose at the end of November I broke my long-standing patch year record of 118. The recent Med Gull has put me onto 120.

I also said at the end of last year that I intended to do a lot more birding in the UK and less birding abroad. Little did I know! I posted a graph that showed a slow slide towards nonchalance. But now look!

The trajectory has changed dramatically! OK so this is not exactly a competitive year list total, a mere 229 species, but compared to recent years it is nothing short of remarkable. Largely this is a result of a birding break in Yorkshire and a couple of family trips to Scotland. My birding away from London other than this has been pretty minimal but a few well-timed and well-planned day trips can accomplish quite a bit. Next year I hope to do more of the same if we are allowed out of our houses.

A graph of my world birding would look very different, the exact opposite trend. With planned trips to Israel and Colombia I was going to see loads and loads, possibly more than ever before even though I was not going to be travelling as much. As it was I snuck in just two birding trips away before the shutters came down and I have to go back to 2010 to find a year where I saw less. C'est la vie. 

Costa's Hummingbird, California

For 2021 here are my predictions. I am reconciled to the first quarter of the year being dedicated to local birding as I think we're going to be in lockdown until at least March. You heard it here first. Things will then ease, but other countries will still not be very keen on seeing people from the UK and so travel will continue to be restricted or at the very least, rather complicated. So the first half of the year will be all about birding in the UK. I can cope with that, provided I am allowed to go to the coast. After that I really don't know. It could be that the kind of places I would like to go birding are simply not safe to go to - spare a thought for those parts of the world with no infrastructure. We shall see, but right now the focus is close to home.

2018 - The year in review

There is still over a week to go, but I have very few birding plans before the New Year, indeed very few plans at all, and so with that in mind I am setting down my review of 2018 now without any worry that it might be considered premature. Plus everybody else is doing it, blogging does have a slight herd mentality to it at times. Anyway, I have had another fun year of birds, travel, gardening, taking photos, and errr, work. Lots of work. Best not dwell on that, I should just be thankful I have a job that allows me to do lots of the former. In fact, that I have job at all. This time next year after the country has jumped off the Brexit cliff who knows where I'll be. 

So, to the usual...

Best twitch
Well this is particularly easy this year as I didn’t twitch anything! My UK list has thus increased by precisely zero, which is somewhat of a watershed moment for me being the first year that this has happened since I developed a taste for rare birds. There were plenty of rarities I could have gone for but I didn’t, and I don’t regret it despite the definite buzz associated with this. This also means that I have avoided all of those tense crowd situations, and all the angst and crappy behaviour that comes along with that. I didn’t avoid that entirely of course, as although I didn’t twitch anything for my UK list I did make a couple of attempts to see a local Bittern. Technically these count as dips of course, and I do not intend to write about that experience again here as there has been quite enough furore. If somehow you missed it, here is the link. So what will 2019 bring? I am going to stick my neck out and say nothing whatsoever as I did not miss the UK twitching scene one little bit.

Best bird
There are a couple candidates for this coveted prize, sadly neither of them are the subject of a gloriously artistic photograph. The first was Crab Plover, which I finally caught up with on my third visit to the Middle East. The birds were miles away on mudflats in north-eastern Oman, and the whole experience was slightly tempered by getting yet another hire car stuck in the mud, but on balance these were just superb and scratched a long-standing itch. I regret not having a scope but this was an unashamedly photographic trip. Having finally seen them, now I want to really see them. For my other candidate there were no such worried – I got amazing views of Blue Nuthatch in Malaysia, so fantastic in fact that I had a bit of a wobble and failed to get any kind of image. This is the way it should be. What a bird, simply incredible. I’ve seen many brightly-coloured birds this year, including Resplendent Quetzal, however this one was breathtaking and also completely random. Mrs L and I were in the Cameron Highlands on a short break a deux, and were walking one of the many trails that cross the area when we stumbled on a bird wave. Mrs L actually saw the bird first and assigned it to the Nuthatch family, whereas I merely proposed the name “Blue”. I still remember it as if it were yesterday, where the bird was, the branch it was on, what it was doing. Truly memorable and despite the thrill of Crab Plovers the prize belongs to Sitta azurea.

Here is piss-poor shot that does it no justice at all!

Best local bird
Local birding has been confined almost exclusively to Wanstead and it has been a fantastic year here. I’ve had five patch ticks versus only one in 2017. Given how long I have been birding here this is nothing short of remarkable. They were Great White Egret, Black-tailed Godwit, Barn Owl, Red-backed Shrike and Rustic Bunting. Of these, the Rustic Bunting, particularly in a London context, is nothing short of astonishing, but given it caused hundreds of people to trample all over the patch for a week, including one gentleman who returned several times and simply could not be convinced not to walk directly at the bird, I cannot in good conscience recommend it as the best bird. The Red-backed Shrike was long overdue, as was the Egret, but my favourite local birding experience for the sheer excitement of it was actually the commonest, Black-tailed Godwit. I chanced upon it early one morning on the side of one of the local ponds and it is without shame that I tell you my legs turned to jelly and I could barely type out the news to the other patch birders. As a bonus it remained on the Alex for several hours allowing quite a few of us to connect, and is recounted here.

Best bird photo
I’ll devote a separate thread to a top ten or something similar, however my absolute favourite photo this year is the following of a Paddyfield Warbler in Bulgaria. I was revisiting a spot I had been to many years ago, but with the benefit of better equipment, more skill, and crucially, more time. I had an image in my head and for once I got it - beautiful light but immensely hard work in high winds. For the usual reasons I was not able to get as much bird photography as I wanted done in 2018, and I am gradually wondering if this is to be a permanent situation if I wish to maintain everything that I do. Work really gets in the way, but actually so does living in the south east of England. You cannot go anywhere or do anything without the crowds, especially for popular birds or well-known locations. Abroad is where it is at for me these days.

Paddyfield Warbler, Durankulak

Best trip
Although my trip with Mrs L to Malaysia and Japan was incredible, especially Japan, any year in which I go to Costa Rica on a birding trip means that any other locations are going to struggle. There is simply no contest. Bob V and I spent a week in this magnificent country back in March and in a mere six days saw nearly 400 birds, mostly exceptionally well. I’d never been on a bespoke birding trip with a guide before and it was incredible. The odd day here and there as part of a wider holiday, but a trip devoted exclusively to birds… well I have seen the light. Bob and I had a private tour with a sensationally talented guide – no minibus full of geriatrics, no late starts and early finishes, we caned it each and every day. Exhausting but exhilarating, and I want to do it again. The trip report can be viewed on the following pages: Itinerary, 1 2/2 3/3 4 5 6 7 8. 

Worst trip
Let me first start by saying that no trips are ever truly bad, I enjoy them all, and because I plan quite carefully they rarely if ever go spectacularly wrong (although had our Omani 4x4 disappeared under the incoming tide whilst bogged down on the Al Hadd mudflats I might be typing something different!). So all my 2018 trips were a lot of fun and all went rather well. Instead I have to look at a trip that I planned but did not manage to go on – Iceland in June. Everything was booked, everything was paid for, I knew where I was going and what I was targeting. And then work went and got in the way. A very important external client, in fact THE most important external party in my line of work, booked a four hour meeting for the day I was due to return. All of the prep work for this meeting was then subsequently booked for the time I was away and I could not miss it. Sometimes that is just what happens, and I guess I have just been lucky to date. With a heavy heart I cancelled my flight, took the hit, and returned to my powerpoint presentation. Mick carried on, and his blog post when he got back was very hard to go through, knowing that I was supposed to have been there too.

Stupidest moment
2018 has been a remarkably sensible year actually. No injuries, no hospital visits, onlytwo camera repairs.... which means that the stupidest moment does actually have to go to pointing the 4x4 towards the shoreline in Oman and assuming we would get there in one piece. A fail of almost of epic proportions. We bogged it well and truly, and it took an hour to get out using bits of old carpet, plants, sticks, whatever we could find. And then once we had it out I very nearly sank it again. All this with the tide rising and threatening to submerge the car, or so I thought anyway - it's good to panic. I've got cars stuck everywhere - Norway, Lithuania, Dubai, Morocco, and now Oman can be added to the list. To add insult to injury I also didn't realise that there was a mileage cap on the rental, and so added a few hundred quid to my bill. Very sadly there is no photo of this particular moment, so instead let's talk about a worthy second place. This goes to Bob, who woke up on the first morning of our Costa Rica trip having already lost his binoculars. The birding trip of a lifetime and within a few hours of arrival the most critical piece of equipment needed has done a runner. Happily they were traced to the restaurant from the previous evening (I can only assume he wanted a really good look at his food) and luckily were still there. Over the course of the week he lost quite a few things, including his plug adapter and cable (the following day), and after I lent him mine, that too. Luckily he still has his marbles....

So that's it for another year. Amazing really, they go so fast these days. I cannot believe that it is 2019 in only a few days. Once again, thanks for reading. Next up, a post sinking under the weight of bird photographs....eagle-eyed readers may notice they have seen them all before....

Best Twitch 2016

Once again it is the time of the year for “best ofs”. Fillers, as they are known. This comes as welcome relief for those like me who occasionally struggle for something to say and instead say silent…. In the past I’ve sometimes done the whole lot in one hit – the year in review if you like, but in 2014 I gave up on that approach. I think even then I was struggling, and so when my carefully constructed post at the end of 2013 sank without trace I couldn’t be bothered to do it again. For the last two years I’ve instead broken it out into several posts, best bird and so on. These mostly sank without trace too but just recently I’ve begun to detect a minor improvement in blogging conditions, a bit more community spirit rising to the surface perhaps, so I’m going to give it one more go.

Let’s start with the best twitch, seeing as 2016 has been a mega year for rare birds and I’ve seen absolutely loads. Oh wait…. Talk about a pointless exercise! I’ve been on precisely two twitches all year, well three if you count the Lanceolated Warbler on Shetland but I didn't have much choice on that one. An exercise in futility in many ways but here goes. So one was a day trip in fabulous fall conditions up to Spurn. The other saw me drive out to the Essex coast mid-morning and be back for lunch.

Both have their positives and negatives. If you view twitching as stupid, fundamentally lacking in skill and having little to do with birding, then the Essex Forster’s Tern was in many ways the perfect twitch. A leisurely start waiting on news, not very far away, easy parking, bird on view more or less immediately and showing quite well, smash and grab. And dull as ditch water. Completely and utterly boring, a tick in a box. The only way it could have been less fulfilling would have been if it had been a distant blob. I mean I like seeing new birds as much as the next guy, but really? Twitching is a mug’s game if this is what it is reduced to. I drove, I saw. Hmmm. And many of the birds that I have twitched I have often seen far far better abroad. As the years go by this is probably the reason why I am twitching less and less. And I just gave up my bird news subscription if that is any indication of what 2017 holds.

Forster's Tern, Mistley Quay, Essex. Oh no, my mistake, Florida.

The Siberian Accentor at Spurn was in many ways the exact opposite, leaving at midnight and driving miles through the night on no news. Generally this is not my preferred approach – for starters I need more sleep than in the past, and then there is always the risk of a massive dip. And whilst I generally react to big dips with nothing more with a shrug of the shoulders, I’d prefer not to be in that situation. I know you have to be in it to win it, but with no interest in winning I’d rather not be in it really. Anyway, all that is irrelevant because I went. I do not know why, but I went. The bird was there of course, but the day is memorable for entirely different reasons. In fact the twitch element of it was bloody awful if I am honest. It was still dark when we walked through the village, and it just does not feel right parking up in front of peoples’ houses in the still of the night, getting out to stretch legs, have a cup of coffee and so on. If I looked out of my window in the middle of the night I would not want to see throngs of people walking down the street, or waiting outside what passes for my front garden. The closing of car doors, the hum of chatter, imagine if – as must be inevitable – you woke somebody up? None of that matters though, seeing the bird is all that counts, no?

Anyway, rounding a corner at 5am and in the dark to find the Dull Men of Great Britain Convention in full swing was a bit of a shock, if not entirely surprising. The behaviour was less of a shock, and whilst it didn’t reach the lows of the Dusky Thrush grave-trampling, there is something about large crowds of desperate birders that sits very uncomfortably with me. I want to see the bird, but I don’t want to be part of the crowd. Part of it is self-preservation - I don’t want to be crushed, especially as I appear to be so fragile these days (MRI scan last week, two X-ray scans already this week and it is only Monday. Don’t ask….). I don’t want to be tarred by any accusations of being involved in habitat destruction, trampling, lack of decorum etc. And I also don’t want to be part of a group of people embarrassing themselves, even though simply being there is embarrassing enough. So as usual I hung back, unwilling to be part of the surging mass. One day this will cost me a bird I am sure, as the poor creature does a bunk immediately, freaked out by the wall of humanity* rushing towards it, but I just can’t deal with it. That first 90 minutes of waiting slightly removed from the ever-swelling crowd ranks as a 2016 low, and the hysteria triggered by the first sighting, or what people understood was a sighting but probably wasn’t – well you had to be there to believe it.

Thankfully the rest of the day was a lot better. We birded Spurn in fabulous conditions, with birds falling out of the sky all around us. We saw nothing overly noteworthy, more decent quantities of good, but it was bloody brilliant and was topped off when Sam finally saw a Little Bunting. To be there for that moment was very special, and the day is memorable for good company and superb birding. None of this really had much to do with the twitch, albeit that without the presence of a rare bird I wouldn’t have been there. It therefore feels silly to award this the much coveted title of Best Twitch of 2016, but in the absence of contenders… Tell you what, let’s call it a draw. Or more realistically, no winner and so no award. Deferred until 2017. Or never.  

*I am being generous….

2015 Bird of The Year

Yesterday on the train back down from Scotland I had a really good idea for a blog post. It was quirky, it was different, it had nothing whatsoever to do with birds and it was going to be a lot of fun. There is just one thing preventing me publishing it. Between yesterday and today I have completely forgotten what it was going to be about. I sat down and started typing this in the hope that it might come back, but so far it has not. Now I am not that old, not even middle-aged. Dementia ought to still be many years away. So you are spared, and instead I will regale you with what the best bird in 2015 was – of all birds I mean, not just the new UK ticks. What single bird did I enjoy most? My choice may be slightly controversial.

So yes there were various rarities, including monster birds all over the country and a self-found on-patch Yellow-browed Warbler. These are all just numbers however, and when I look back at 2015 there are a small number of birds that make me smile, that make me remember the place and the time. My shortlist would contain the excellent and fearless Dotterel in Essex, the splendid and monumental Varied Thrush in Washington, the White-tailed Plover in lovely light from Dubai……and the Red-legged Partridge in Wanstead!

I know, how can I possibly choose an introduced bird of unknown provenance as my favourite bird of the year? Well, it’s actually very easy. Of all the birds I came across, when I think back to this one it is simply the one that makes me smile the most. Birding is supposed to be a pleasure and I can't think back at that bird and not grin, and that's why it's a no-brainer for my bird of the year - no other bird does that in quite the same way. The Varied Thrush was epic, and to this day I continue to high-five myself when I think back to that moment, but I still keep returning the Partridge. I had missed it in the morning due to needing to go to work, but had left early in the vain hope it might still have been around. Wanstead Flats is not the kind of place I could see a small game bird surviving more than a couple of hours, but against all the odds I refound it almost immediately, pottering around without a care in the world under some goalposts in the late afternoon sunshine. Most people probably don’t give Red-legs a second glance, neither would I probably, but when it’s on your patch you look a little closer, and it was a comically gorgeous little bird. What it was doing running around Wanstead Flats we will never know, but it was enjoyed very much by all the local birders. I jogged home to fetch a camera, and was just about able to nab a few shots of it in the last few minutes of light, and before it went and hid in the long grass again. What a stunner!

Best Twitch of 2015

So what was the best twitch of 2015? Really this should be a much easier decision than any previous year because there were fewer of them – nine to be precise, and no big dips. It has taken a few years, and I would in no way claim to be a big lister, but I’ve now seen a sufficiently large number of birds that the chances of something new coming up are thankfully much reduced. And then of course there is the apathy. As I have written many times before (i.e. apologies for boring you...) I go through twitchy phases and distinctly non-twitchy phases, and I find that as the years advance the latter are gradually taking over. I am sure many birding readers will recognise the feelings of relief when a mega breaks and you realise that you saw one of whatever species it is a few years back. Yes! Unless you’re dead keen on county listing, or are Lee Evans, you can sit back and realise that you don’t need to be a part of the no doubt mad panic currently occurring in kitchens, living rooms and offices around the country, as greenhorn low-listers start forming plans. But does the opposite still happen when you do actually ‘need’ whatever it is? For me, not so much these days. For instance a Crag Martin happily spent about ten days flying around first a church spire, and then a sports stadium, both of which were only about three hours from my house. Did I lift a finger, did my ample backside raise itself from its metaphorical sofa? No I did not, and no it did not. I may have glanced at a map, just to check that Derbyshire hadn’t somehow gotten a bit closer to London, but even that was pretty half-hearted. I simply could not sum up sufficient enthusiasm. I do have a sofa by the way, in fact I have several, but I rarely if ever sit on them as I am too busy.

Anyway, I did manage to do a small amount of twitching in 2015, indeed I didn’t hang around, with the first occurring on the first of January which a quick dash up to Yorkshire for a Little Bustard with a bonus Blyth’s Pipit bolted on. Various other birds followed, mainly rare Yank Waders, but it didn’t feel quite like the old days, and the crowd of people I used to zip off to far-flung parts of the UK with are also beginning to lose the urge. And that’s the key to it really, whilst seeing the bird is the primary aim, above all it’s a social thing. I realise this sounds odd, and possibly the last thing that people outside the hobby might think when watching the TV news of a crowd of extremely socially awkward and identically dressed men clutching thermos flasks, and then listening to a dreadful interview or two, but for me given the competitive element fell by the wayside some time ago, a twitch is a now a good excuse to spend a few hours with a bunch of guys I enjoy being with. The anorak-clad masses probably say the same thing actually, but their journeys are filled with tales of birds they saw in 1968 and by the way, is X dead yet?

And so even though the split-second view of the UK’s last Lady Amherst’s Pheasant dashing across a woodland rise in a blue streak left me breathless with giddy excitement, instead I’m going to choose the Hudsonian Godwit at Shapwick Heath NNR in May, which I saw in the company of Nick, Bradders, Tony and Monkey. It’s a fair distance away, perhaps three hours, but the journey flew by mainly thanks to the average mental age in the car being about 12. The average actual age in the car was more like 43, and that’s with Bradders bringing it down substantially, but this crowd are a lot of fun and belie their age, and we had an extremely amusing journey. I have no idea what we talked about, but essentially the day consisted of three hours of nonsense, half an hour with a comatose wader that barely moved a muscle, and then lunch in a pub. On the journey back most of us probably fell asleep, for one of the reasons I gave above…

..

Best Trip of 2014

Zzzzzzzzzzz. Yes, apologies. When talking about travel I am very aware that I am liable to bore the pants of people very quickly. That said, I can do that with almost any topic, it just so happens that I have caught the travel bug, so that’s what I write about today. Tomorrow it could be something completely different, though it goes without saying it’s unlikely to be Wanstead. Sorry about that, the patch has most definitely come off second best this year, possibly not even that high. The blog title is a mockery, I am guilty of false advertising and trading standards have been made aware. I’d love to get back into the patch, but I’m too busy sounding like a broken record. No doubt it will bump along, but last year was very poor. Usually I am guaranteed to come second in the local listing competition, behind Nick. However this year the status quo has been rudely interrupted and I don’t even have a podium place. I don’t, of course, deserve a podium place, so that’s fair enough. All I can say is that it was easier when there were just three of us.

If I were really dweeby I could dig up some stats, but in addition to being my poorest patch year for ages and ages, it was also my lowest UK year list for ages and ages. I ended up on 237 – approximately 23 off my previous low. Year listing is a funny old game, and I’m not sad that I’ve seen such a low number of birds. It’s a total far more indicative of a healthy and well-rounded individual in my opinion, but there have been some crazy misses. No Mandarin Duck, of which the UK’s largest population live about fifteen minutes away. No Black Tern, no Osprey. The list goes on and on, I will not bore you with it as I have recently bored my family.

Work has intervened substantially, it’s been a tough year, tougher than any I’ve ever experienced. Local birding and going birding for the sake of going birding are what has suffered. Last year I believe I ended by saying I’d work hard and play hard, and that has certainly been the case. How I’ve kept going I have no idea, and there have been quite a few stressful moments, including some of my own stupid making. When I stopped running around like a lunatic momentarily just before Christmas, I immediately fell ill, having somehow avoided lurgy throughout the whole rest of the year. The answer is clearly not to slow down, and despite my rapidly advancing years I still feel reasonably energetic. It’ll hit me one day I’m sure, but for now I intend to continue to burn the candle both ends until I get singed.

In the same way that the patch and the UK have gone south, so has this blog. Versus previous years I’ve posted far less, and it annoys me. It used to be a fairly steady 15-16 posts a month, but this year it has been more like 9-10. I’d love to be able to say that I’m a quality over quantity kind of guy, but in truth I’ve had nothing to say for years. However that never stopped me before, whereas this year saw a mere 121 posts. I know, Thank God. But for someone who likes writing this is a massive decline, and it’s not like I have other outlets. Mind you, one advantage of fewer posts means that I have less opportunity to ramble on endlessly and stray off topic... 

...err, anyway, the best trip of 2014 has many many contenders, quite simply as I’ve been to many many places, and because I plan my trips properly they’ve all gone rather well. I’ve visited 15 countries, with highlights being taking my family to the USA for the first time and visiting the town my ancestors are from. Then of course there was Hong Kong to visit my sister and her family, which was breathtaking. Birding took a back seat for much of the time, and I zipped around the territory like a nutcase soaking it all in.

From a birding perspective however, it was all about Morocco. I made three visits there, one in January, one in February, and then more recently at the start of this month. The February trip to the desert areas south of Guelmin was the standout trip, with numerous Wheatears and other special birds. That’s not to say that the other trips to Morocco were no good, far from it, and indeed Cyprus was pretty damn good too, but it was the middle, longer trip that stood out. We arrived at lunchtime, and the following morning were in the middle of nowhere, knee-deep in Thick-billed Larks and Red-rumped Wheatears. 

Possibly my favourite foreign bird of 2014

That however doesn’t get the nod. Instead I’m picking Iceland, a short trip that I went on in late June in minimal darkness. Only three and a half days, a long weekend really, but what a place. A tiny trip-list, but the views of the birds were unparalled. Breeding waders and divers were abundant, and I had Phalaropes at arms length. Amazing Harlequin Ducks on the coast, and a trip to Myvatn for Barrow’s Goldeneye. The landscape is dramatic to say the least, but I have no photographic talent in that area and in any event was too busy with the birds. So hard to choose given all the other places I’ve been to, but it was somewhere I’d wanted to go for a long time and it gets a big thumbs up from me as it was as good as I had hoped it would be. Just beware of the weather – I can’t recall seeing the sun at any point, but we did see a lot of rain! That did not detract from what was an excellent trip that I would recommend to anyone interested in waders, wildfowl, and wild scenery.

The shortest day, the shortest year, the best bird

Hard to believe we're here again, but here we are. A year ago, more or less, I was lying on my front in a Yorkshire puddle whilst photographing an Ivory Gull. I had thought that would be it for the year, but a week later I was in the south-west for a Dorset-Devon double-header, with first Brunnich's Guillemot and then a White-billed Diver. Looking back, it was a fabulous three weeks, and this December hasn't lived up to it at all, though there is a Blyth's Pipit knocking about that I cannot get excited about, fabulous inland find though it undoubtedly is. No, this December I've been content to knock around Wanstead, and most weekend days have been spent at home doing not very much. That's fine by me, my schedule can be pretty gruelling and some slack days are much appreciated. Not long to go before 2015 kicks off, and as from tomorrow the northern hemisphere starts its slow tilt back towards the sun. Normally I get a little sad as the year passes away, the trigger is usually when the clocks go through their autumn change, and that following Monday I'm sat at my desk bemoaning the 4pm darkness.

This year I've barely noticed the long march towards winter, engrossed in other things I suppose, but if you look at it in bird terms, it has been very quiet indeed compared to last year. In 2013 I gained eight lifers from October onwards, including four in December. In 2013 that number has been zero. Two in September, a Rustic Bunting on Shetland and a smash-and-grab raid on the Spurn Masked Shrike, and then nothing since. The two years could barely have been more different, and that late surge meant that 2013 was a lot more profitable than this year has been. 15 vs 10 is the final score, unless something dramatic happens. These days it is unlikely that my annual lifer total will start going up, but that's still a pretty hefty decline, and one that if projected sees me fizzle out on 429 in 2017, and then add a bird per decade. I'll hit 500 when I'm 500. Mind you, by that time a decent yearlist will be about 25 as most things will be extinct apart from Parakeets.

I usually do this in one post, but I make eke it out over the course of a few and thus up my steadily shrinking post count. Favourite bird of 2014? Last year the UK prize went to an Izzy Wheatear. This year it could easily go to the Kent Desert Wheatear, but I think for sheer buzz it has to be a rogue male Caper that I stopped in on between the American Coot and the American Black Duck. Odd that neither of those two should feature.... Many many people went to admire this amazing bird as the news spread (not from me I should add) - in my case I went in February before the breeding season kicked off and before the bird got too crazed from rising testosterone levels, but it was still a terrifying experience and I was left in absolutely no doubt as to where his territory was and where I should stay. I crossed that invisible line and was resolutely chased off, but if I stayed a short distance up a certain slope, only a few metres back, I was no longer viewed as a threat or a mating prospect and he strutted off to elsewhere on 'his' turf. An amazing experience with magnificent bird and one I'll not forget for a very long time.

 

2013: The Year in Review

2013 - The Year of the Wheatear
What, already? Yes, I'm afraid so, here we are (all three of us) again. Another year gone, shorter of breath etc. Whereas last year was the year of the Pipit, 2013 was the year of the Wheatear. First of all they were late, very late, but this gave me a shot at something I've been aiming at for many years - to find the first returning patch Wheatear on my birthday. And bugger me if I didn't do it! A filthy day, snowing in parts, but over by the long ditch on the eastern half of the Flats a plucky little African migrant was hopping along. When the weather finally allowed migration to continue in mid-April, they came thick and fast. At one point standing at the vizmig point, a 360 degree turn would have netted up to 30 birds - quality on a vast scale. And then of course there was the fabulous Izzy Wheatear in West Wales, followed up fairly quickly with a Pied Wheatear in the Midlands. I nearly made it a full house with a Desert Wheatear, but circumstances conspired against me and the bird departed before I could get there. Which means it doesn't even count as a dip, and this year above all has been memorable for its lack of dips. I can't really think of anything I've dipped. Many people could say this of course simply by staying at home all year, but by being careful about what I set off for and crucially, what I don't, I've had an amazing run. This means that there is probably a massive dip somewhere in my future, but let's leave that to next year's write up. Sorry, what Tropicbird?

Although I try not to have any birding goals, I did mention last year that being a mere stone's throw from 400 BOU, that I would likely attempt to get over the line. If you have been paying close attention, you will have seen that I got there. If you've been skim-reading and looking mostly at photos, I got there. I got there!! Starting on 395, I nipped up to Shetland for the Pine Grosbeak in mid-February, went for the North Uist Harlequin in late March, armchair ticked the 2012 Kent Hooded Merg at some point, and then in late April finally caught up with a long overdue Subalpine Warbler for 399. And then came the Dusky Thrush. Yay! Remarkably easy, and I even considered hanging up my twitching hat, but a week later a Roller turned up - unmissable - and I felt I might as well continue......

Closer to home, I tried to win the highly coveted Golden Mallard which is worth at least fifty quid on Ebay, but despite pulling my best ever patch total out of the bag, I couldn't even muster a podium place..... Pretty pleased with how it went though, as I wasn't able to get out a great deal during the latter part of the year. I'm actually debating not bothering with the patch next year, sad though that sounds - should I rename the blog? We will see if the typical January 1st enthusiasm picks me up (weather making this look unlikely!) but I like to do things properly rather than half-heartedly, and the way it has been going I'm struggling to see how I can improve upon the amount of time I get. Stop twitching madly round the country perhaps?

What else did I say? Something about photos? Well, as with the patch, opportunities to use the camera also fell off a cliff in the latter part of the year. I have intense periods, usually coinciding with travel of some kind, and then the camera lives in a bag for weeks at a time. This is not good enough, I failed to do enough this year, and I continue to miss a trick. The more I use a camera, the better I will get. And whilst if I don't use if I don't think I'll stagnate, at least not quickly, I certainly won't improve, and that is time wasted. 2013 has been OK in terms of results, I've taken some nice ones, but I know deep down I can do better. The really good bird photographers are the ones who hardly ever put their cameras down, day in, day out. Clearly I can't compete with that, but there's still a long way to go, and going three weeks at a time without pointing my lens at a bird gets me precisely nowhere.

2014 Goals
Professional
- work hard, play hard. 'nuff said.

Personal Goals
- no numbers, there are none in reach anyway. In 2013 I reached 400 in the UK, 250 in London, and set my new patch record. What else is there? I'm on 411 now, can I celebrate 415? Exactly. Any other meaningful numbers are years away. And not actually meaningful anyway, even if they are mildly satisfying.
- I will use the camera once a week. I will make myself do it, even if it seems unpromising. When light allows, I will use it more often. I need to get more serious. Again. I feel I'm on another plateau, with another climb ahead, but one that is possible.

Best Birding Moment
Ah where to start, there have been many. Standing on the white sandy beach in glorious weather at Balranald in the company of perhaps seven other people watching the Harlequin Duck bob about just offshore is pretty high up there. Cleaning up on the Owls in ever-lasting daylight in Finland was amazing too, with Great Grey Owl seen well a mere ten minutes after setting off, followed by seeing Ural Owl without getting maimed. That trip is also memorable for the surreality of photographing Citrine Wagtail at midnight. Then there was the excitement of realising in a split second that I had probably just seen another Stone-Curlew flying over Wanstead Flats, breaking into a run whilst simultaneously phoning people, and then having the bird break cover again and nailing it for all time as it curved behind some trees and came out the other side. Elation and relief. Another memorable moment comes from Morocco, and the search for Desert Sparrow which took us out on foot along a camel track into the Erg Chebbi dune system. That was amazing birding, that felt incredible, but all of these things are topped by a chance encounter in Scotland on the way back from the Grosbeak. Wandering along a forest track n the highlands I happened to glance to my right....

Coming towards me up the bank was an enormous male Capercaillie. Surely one of these rogue males that you hear about, it stalked into the middle of the track. I had been walking slightly ahead of the guys, and the bird was now between me and them. I rarely get scared birding, this was a rare exception. Satisfied that we were not a threat, it moved off the road and back into the pines. How often does a birding experience make you shake from nervous excitement?  The four of us agreed that we had just witnessed something very special indeed. Somehow I refrained from blogging about it at the time. We thought it best for the bird - once news of a rogue Caper gets out, it's a slippery slope. The word spreads, more and more people visit, and eventually something bad will happen. It wouldn't be my fault, but I would have started it in motion, and there are not enough Capercaillie in those forests.

Best UK Trip
There is no contest here. Good as the trip up to the Grosbeak on Shetland was, with great highland birding as decribed above, and a visit to the ever-fabulous Largo Bay, the trip to North Uist for the Harlequin Duck was simply wonderful. I'd never been the islands before, and they're so special I'm taking the family back there on holiday next year - a fringe benefit of twitching. We travelled in two stages, first leg to Carlisle and then the ferry the following day from Oban with some birding in between. The sea was flat calm, and the skies were blue, a quality crossing involving beer and a few Manxies. Arriving after dark we piled into a tiny bunkhouse and the next morning (day three of our odyssey) awoke to intense calm and silence save the calling of birds. It hardly mattered whether the duck was there or not, but of course it was. At the end of a stretch of dunes was a small rocky point, and bobbing around just off the beach close to it was our prize. White sand, more blue skies, a magical experience just being there and the Harlequin the icing on the cake.

Best Bird
This category is incredibly difficult until you realise that I've seen millions of Wheatears this year, both here and abroad. This shortens the list considerably, but of course presents its own problems - how can you pick one Wheatear over another? Well, it was tough, and there are rarer birds, but the Isabelline Wheatear in Pembrokeshire was fractionally without peer. It took an awfully long time to get there, but twitching had again brought me to somewhere pretty special. The bird had been there some time, and getting there was such a mission that we almost had it to ourselves - a couple of local birders and a few families out enjoying a walk in the nice weather. So even though the list of UK rarities this year has been almost unbelievable, and even though I've travelled to a fair few places further afield, this is the bird that I keep coming back to and smiling broadly.

Worst Bird
An unfair award perhaps, but serves to highlight either my stupidity, or that of birding. Last year the Pechora on Shetland took top honours by being a skulky so-and-so and causing indecorous behaviour that annoyed the islanders. This year I thought about giving this award to the Dusky Thrush in Margate Cemetery, as that drew some spectacularly bad behaviour from the assembled crowd. You could argue that the dead don't care where you stand, but to see hordes of panicking people crashing straight over graves was a disgrace. Woeful behaviour, utterly embarrassing, it is just a bird. The sad fact is that many of the (living) people there wouldn't have even given it a second thought, the bird was the most important thing at that moment in time, and they will not have noticed or cared that they just trampled over somebody's final resting place. But one bird tops this, and you can probably guess which one. Red-billed Tropicbird. This has everything going for it. Acute embarrassment for all those present who missed it including me, in fact especially me as I was down the slope a bit, fabulous rarity value, and a whole shitload of internet aftermath mostly from people who weren't there. Top marks, and a deserved winner!

Worst UK Trip
With no big dips to speak of, and the Cornish seawatching pretty decent despite missing a Tropicbird, I'm struggling rather on this one. I could nominate my sea-watching trip to Co. Clare in Bagnall-esque fashion, but I'm plumping for the Semipalmated Plover twitch, which was twitching simply for a number. Like Short-toed Treecreeper, it's er, subtle. I attempted to call it educational, but really the best you can say about it is that it wasn't too bad. Hardly a ringing endorsement. Add to this that I misread the weather and came out in just a teeshirt and jacket when it fact it was blowing a gale and raining, and that the bird took hours to find, looking back I find it easy to say that I have had more enjoyable days out.

Best Foreign Trip
Ooooh. Lots. Lots and lots. My travel schedule is a source of mockery, and it's fair to say I've had a rather good year. I view this as just recompense for working my ass off most of the rest of the time, and travel is one of the main reasons I do it. Where have I been then? Well, chronologically I went to Morocco, Spain, Finland, Hungary, Majorca, Ireland, and St Lucia. With the exception of the Ireland trip which was a let down on the sea-watching front, they were all excellent, which makes it very hard to choose. My family holiday to Majorca was fantastic, and to see the kids warm, swimming all day long, was brilliant. We don't spend enough time together, which means that when we do it's very special. The absurd mark ups during holiday season combined with the insistence that children not be taken away in term time make it very difficult for families as busy as we are. But we need to do it more often and so we've got a few things lined up next year already, including a family trip to America.

Morocco was a real eye-opener, how birding should be, fabulous scenery and brilliant birds, but unfortunately a distinct lack of rum cocktails. Which means that once again this award is heading west across the Atlantic. St. Lucia was sublime, a perfect mix of relaxation, birding, photography and fruity drinks. If as a family we don't spend enough time together, time Mrs L and I have together is even scarcer. She's busy, I'm busy, it's that time of life. A week in the Caribbean is very helpful, and I love it there. She of course isn't really bothered where it is, just as long as it's with me.....

Best Gig
I've had to replace the Worst Domestic incident in the annual review. This was highly relevant when I was in charge of all things house and kid, but I barely lift a finger any more so there is nothing to say. I once overpaid the gardener. See? I do however go to a lot of gigs, and plan to continue to do so as I have discovered I really enjoy it and lots of great acts come to London. Why it took me nearly 15 years of living in London to discover that I could go to concerts is a mystery, but I am making up for lost time. This year I saw The Counting Crows, Eric Church, Kacey Musgraves, Vince Gill, Little Big Town, Tim McGraw, The Zac Brown Band, The Band Perry, and The Rolling Stones. But I also saw Springsteen, and thus have nothing more to say. Untouchable.

Most Amusing Photograph
Birding trips with mates generally always have many funny momements, and if I'm lucky enough (or quick enough!) I sometimes manage to get a photo. Nick falling over various fences in Shetland this year sadly went unrecorded, but he does feature in one of the funniest photos this year which you can find in this post, but top honour goes to Bradders and The Tree. The tree in Morocco that was rumoured to contain nesting Desert Sparrows, the tree that was sought out using satellite mapping whilst still in the UK, the tree that was programmed into various GPS applications. The tree that was approached in 4WD across the desert, the tree that first appeared as a speck on the horizon, and the tree that after all that contained no birds whatsoever!

Thanks for reading, Happy New Year, and see you in 2014!

PS If you fancy a blast from the past to see how my annual reviews have diverged, here are a few links
2012
2011
2010
2009