Ireland mini leagues

-
From the blue of Scotland to the green of Ireland....
or should that be emerald?

The jewel in the comparative table is.....



And the non-comparative...


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

July round-up 2026

-
Image
Hello from the Patchwork Challenge team!   July was again generally fairly quiet, but like June did, it delivered a few birds of pure magic. There were also clear signs of autumn migration already taking place, with a trickle of waders being reported as well as passerines, including a good spread of Redstarts. The best bird however being a stunning Blue-cheeked Bee-eater that graced Papa Westray for a short while before touring round other parts of Orkney.  August is nearly over due to my severely delayed blog post, however, it is still in an incredibly enthralling month. Large falls of warblers can occur just about anywhere, and now is the time to be looking for flycatchers and Redstarts, particularly on inland patches in areas where they are unlikely to be otherwise than on migration. Whinchats and Wheatears fall into that same bracket too. Wader passage has kicked into at least second or third gear now, with juvenile waders joining in the throngs moving south and west. This...
Read more

What is the 'patchwork' challenge?

-
Image
The birding fraternity has seen a shift in attitudes recently, with many birders turning their attention from twitching towards rarity finding.   As a result, there also seems to have been an upturn in the profile watching a local patch. The advantages of watching a local patch are obvious. Low fuel costs and travel time aside, great pleasure can be derived from getting to learn a place inside out, observing how the seasons change, and getting value from common species that otherwise wouldn’t get a second glance. Throw in the potential for the odd rare bird or scarcity and to me, you have a really exciting, involving way to enjoy your birding. So what could enhance the patch watchers enjoyment a little? Well, perhaps adding an element of competition would do the trick. We’re a competitive bunch, us birders, both with our peers and ‘internally’ as well. We like a gloat, we like to add things to lists, and we like to know what the numbers are. So why not see if we can add a ...
Read more

Tom Bedford's local patch - Lye Valley, Oxford

-
Image
This guest blog post is written by diligent patch birder Tom Bedford about his Lye Valley patch. A huge thank you to him for writing this excellent piece about his patch in deepest Oxford, which includes images of the patch as well as some of the excellent records he has gathered there over the years. It is also goes into brilliant detail about how watching visible migration means you can see anything almost anywhere! We hope you thoroughly enjoy reading it.  My local patch: the Lye Valley area, Oxford They say strength comes from adversity. But in my case, having fractured the neck of my femur during a half marathon in the spring of 2019, I gained a local patch. Being restricted to walking with crutches for a month, I began taking a daily limp from my house, a circular 4km walk through a couple of scrubby meadows, past an inner-city golf course and up through the small Lye Valley nature reserve. This nature reserve is a SSSI for rare plant species, and a boardwalk allows visitors ...
Read more