Best Find Patchwork Challenge 2026 - January to June edition - Entries!

Hi from the Patchwork Challenge team! 

This is an exciting one. This is where you, the public, get to decide on the Best Find of Spring #PWC2026. We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who submitted an entry for the competition. All the entries are fantastic and we have thoroughly enjoyed reading through them all. We hope you enjoyed compiling your submissions, but most importantly enjoyed the moment of finding the bird! However, now is the time we head over to the public to vote for the lucky winners! There are three Patchwork Challenge Champion pin badges up for grab so please take your time to read through these submissions and cast your vote at the bottom of the page. Remember, it isn't necessarily about how rare the bird is in a national sense, it is also about how much of a personal achievement and how exciting it was to find that bird on your patch! 

Mark Andrews - Kilnsea 3km²

Since relocating from Dorset to Kilnsea in 2018 my garden has been the epicentre of my birding, and an escape from the pressures of work. Thu 5 March was no different - a lengthy phone call with HMRC necessitated a break, so I walked my usual route from my office to the floodbank and along the Humber shoreline to the orchard. Along the way I heard a single buzzy call, one I was familiar with from my past life - Dartford, surely?! It stopped me in my tracks, but after a few minutes with nothing more I assumed it was my imagination playing tricks and carried on walking. Always trust your instincts! Two steps on, and a dark blob jumped up into a nearby hawthorn - male Dartford!! Typically elusive, it wandered widely around the garden and next-door for the rest of the day, mostly showing in the brash pile only created the day before, and giving an ideal opportunity for anyone who wanted to see it. Only the second record for Spurn and East Yorkshire, and not a bird I would ever have predicted for the garden.

Jackie Binks - Garston Coastal Reserve and Oglet 3km²

It was dusk on 22nd January and I was walking toward a small copse with a pond when I saw a bird that looked all black with a long tail perched in a tree. I had never seen one like it before and had no idea what it was but just knew it was something different. I took a quick photo in the fading light and recorded its call which  was a clacking sound and put this on the Liverpool whatsapp group. Zac Hinchcliffe replied straight away and said it was a grackle sp! I couldn’t believe it and was absolutely buzzing with excitement, it was nearly dark by now and the grackle went to roost with the magpies deep into the copse.

I could barely sleep with excitement that night and woke up early next morning and rushed back to the meadow and it was there perched up, I put the news out straight away and it wasn’t long before all the local birders turned up who were equally as exited as me! Haha!

The next couple of months saw a steady stream of birders from all over the country and it was fantastic to meet and chat with them, I was there everyday upto 3 times sometimes as I was completely besotted with the bird and loved talking to everyone who turned up to see it. The whole of April and up to the middle of May he sang his little heart out from the copse trying to attract a mate and I couldn’t help but feel really sad to think it was never going to find one. My friend described its song as like “a rusty hinge on a squeaky door" haha, he’s right too. It’s been 6 months now and he looks to be really settled here, I still go to the copse and meadow everyday and am always excited when he’s there, he mainly just roosts there now and spends most of the day around the estuary business park as he did when he first arrived but does pop back during the day.  I have taken hundreds of photos and videos. I still can't believe my luck at having this mega on my patch and hope he sticks around as I would really miss seeing him as it’s part of my daily routine now.

Daniel Langston - Branston Island 3km²

I'd been patching Branston Island for around 4 months, having finally found a decent looking site close-ish to home after moving from Northumberland to Lincolnshire in 2024. It's a site used to take pressure of the River Witham and ultimately prevent flooding, and it had filled up almost completely over the winter. Up to April I'd found a few nice birds, Green-winged Teal the pick of the bunch, but it really felt like the site could deliver something better.

By 0715 on 26 Apr, having been on site for 90 mins and had a nice mix, with 7 Whimbrel E the highlight. Walking back along the bank towards the car, I stopped for one last quick scan of the main area in slightly better light, when one of the 'Black-heads' caught my attention. It took me about 25 mins to be confortable enough with the ID due a mix of distance, light, and it's potential rarity, but I eventually plucked up the courage to call it a 2cy Bonaparte's Gull and release the news. Thankfully, 2 other local-ish birders were able to race down and see it before it flew never to be seen again at 0900. 

Overall, a really enjoyable bird, a find tick, and only the 3rd accepted record for Lincs - Branston Island put back on the birding map properly too. 

Steve Dudley - Westray 3km²

It was around 0805h and I’d spent the morning searching for migrants, including a Golden Oriole from previous days, around gardens at the southern end of Pierowall village, Westray. I had just returned to the car ready to head home for my second breakfast. I was standing at the open car door putting some of my gear on to the passenger seat when a large, pale passerine flew from the garden next to me and landed in a small clump of Rosa rugosa about 5m away. Even with the naked eye I could immediately see it was a Great Reed Warbler (!) so I quickly leaned into the car to grab my camera, but just as I raised it to my eye the bird took off and flew across an overgrown garden to some bushes at the rear of the garden about 75m away. I got a few flight shots but with the bird diving into dense cover I wasn’t confident of seeing it again from where I was standing. 

I relocated to the other side of the bushes (now c. 50m away from where it had disappeared) where I could see the GRW hopping about at the base of the willow. After several minutes it started to climb through an adjacent bush to the highest bare stem where it sat for about a minute giving a short burst of sub-song before flying into deeper cover. 

Having put the news out on the isle WhatsApp group I was joined by visiting birder Bob McMillan and part-time Westray resident, David Bailey. During the course of the day, we saw the bird on and off clambering through bushes or in flight up to around 1345h when it flew into an area of inaccessible gardens and wasn’t seen again. This being the just the fifth record for Orkney, and only the second away from North Ronaldsay! 

Tom Bedford - Lye Valley 3km²

It took eight years. 10% of an average human life, about the same jail time you would serve if you committed GBH or supplied class A drugs. My local patch is inland, inner city, with no open water. Urban birding makes you readjust your expectations. I had two scrubby meadows and my patch did attract some migrant birds. Gradually, I became obsessed with finding a spring male Common Redstart. Some springs I went around my patch at dawn every morning, March through May. Every single morning. No Redstart. I came close on 29th April 2024, a female Redstart, flushed into a hedgerow, only seen in flight and then disappeared for good. Nice, but not a meaningful find. No glowing orange breast, no stunning black face, set off by a white supercilium and cool blue-grey upperparts. No shimmering red tail.

Spring 2026 saw my 900th patch visit come and go. 13th April dawned cold, sub-zero with a ground frost, blue skies above. I made my usual circuit around Warneford Meadow, but was stopped in my tracks by a burst of song. That had to be a singing Redstart?! I scanned through the bare branches, disregarding the Chiffchaffs and Blue Tits moving through the trees. There, at the back of the far tree, was a very slim passerine, perched at head height and nearly completely silhouetted. It was a male Common Redstart.

ABSOLUTE PANIC STATIONS. It was happening. It was happening right now. The Holy Grail of urban spring birding. And it was singing! I moved away from the trees and tried to make a large circle back around the oaks, where the light was better. The bird was nowhere to be seen. I waited. I listened. I waited some more. The Redstart appeared to have gone. After waiting a lot longer, I began searching the nearby bushes and trees. I began to fear that was it. Eight years of dreaming, and then all over in less than ten seconds.

I am on the point of giving up, so I return to the young oaks. There is a movement, low down in the nearest oak. It is the Redstart and it is truly gorgeous. Rarely have I appreciated a bird more than this: the orange breast, the black face, the white supercilium and the blue-grey crown. The shimmering red tail and even the fact that it is shy and so good at disappearing. Just a fantastic birding experience. Eight years. 914 patch visits. Worth every moment.

Neil Burt - Godinton, Hothfield and Singleton 3km²

Patchwork Challenge birding in June 2026 was indeed challenging, not least because of the heatwave conditions during parts of the month. But a bit of patch gold occurred on the morning of Sunday the 28th making it all worthwhile. It was an early start to beat the heat, but the walk around parts of the patch were very quiet.

Arriving back at the house, the local Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gulls started alarm calling. Looking up, a large raptor was gliding towards me from the direction of rural Godinton Park. Panic… door keys were quickly thrown on the ground so that I could raise the binoculars… a superb HONEY BUZZARD, that started to circle over our garden. A fantastic garden & patch tick !!! It appeared to be a darkish female bird, missing some secondaries in the left wing, with the binoculars revealing the bars on the long tail and on the underwing, and the distinctive protruding head also being noted. The bird then quickly moved off towards Ashford town centre, with the gulls keeping a close eye on it, but not mobbing. Sadly I don’t tend to carry a camera so no pictures unfortunately.

A truly special moment. I have always dreamed of a Honey Buzzard on the patch… that has now come true!!! It is another bird of prey to add to the garden list, the last being an Osprey during the lockdown period in Spring 2020.

Tyler Atkinson - Clifford Hill Gravel Pits 3km²

Over the loud A45 road noise, I could just about hear the faint spinning coin song notes of a Wood Warbler coming from over from the north side of the river Nene, it was enough to make me stop in my tracks, even surprising myself how I even recognised it and instantlt started to doubt myself. First thing that came to mind was a dodgy Wren or another Sedge Warbler doing a good impersonation in its repertoire, but it was singing just clear enough, giving me a buzzing moment realising this sounded genuine.

After putting the news out, I then noticed a small lemon yellow bird moving about in a willow tree canopy across the river, completely camouflaged for most of the time with the wind blowing the branches around. 

Struggling for a good view, I took a risk which was to dash across all the way to the footbridge over half a mile away to cross over the river and run across to the same willow tree, thankfully after 15 minutes, the Wood Warbler was still singing in the same tree! I managed to get a great view and video of the bird from underneath the tree. It was then appreciated by many local birders, seeing the photo I put up on the chat. This was the highlight moment of the Spring at Clifford Hill Gravel Pits this year so far, being a bird that has declined and hard to come by in Northamptonshire now. Goes to show how great it to learn calls and songs of many birds. 

Harry Appleyard - Spurn 3km²

The southward movement of non-breeding Swifts is perhaps one of the most eagerly-anticipated events of June and July at Spurn, not only for the spectacle of Common Swifts racing through along the clifftops and Humber in the thousands, but also the chance of rare Swift species in the mix, including Pallid, which so far has produced 9 autumn records and 3 spring records (until 2026) as an overshooting vagrant here.

Having found a Pallid Swift heading south here last June, I was determined to get eyes on another this year. In the week leading up to 28th June I had been practicing with my camera’s tracking and shutter speeds on locally-breeding Common Swifts near Hull but when a distinctly brown, pale Swift flew overhead among several others at The Warren that morning, it was a now or never moment, with just a few seconds to photograph it as well as point it out to two of the regular vismig watchers before it disappeared behind the nearby bushes. Luckily, it all worked out, with the images clinching it nicely!

Liam Langley - St Ives Island 3km²

The evening of the 4 th of March saw several of the local St Ives Birders meeting up at the Pilchard Press (our local watering hole of choice) to swap birding tales and celebrate the patch mega Curlew Sandpiper that Alan Lobb had pulled out amongst a flock of Dunlin on the rocks at the island just before dusk which had sparked a hasty and successful twitch. As inevitably happens at these occasions, talk turned to what rarities the group would inevitably find locally and given the presence of 2 wintering Pacific Divers across the county in Mount’s Bay, I opined that the first St Ives record of this subtle but increasing vagrant was well overdue. 

The next morning saw Alan, Gareth Jones and I in position bright and early, and despite much enthusiasm, things had been fairly slow. At around 08.30, Gareth decided to head off around the coast whilst Alan and I continued scanning. Shortly thereafter, I picked up a small, compact Black-throated type Diver c300m offshore to the east of our position. Immediately alarm bells began to ring as I noticed the conspicuous lack of a white flank patch and the small, rounded head and weak bill. I hastily called Gareth up from the coast path below us and, after I voiced my thoughts that this was an excellent candidate for Pacific Diver, Alan ran back down to the car park to grab his Nikon P1000 to grab some record shots. 

The bird thankfully played ball drifting west and gradually out to sea on the tide, preening occasionally but never diving, allowing 25 minutes of near continuous observation before we lost track of it at c09.00 at over 1.5km range to the northwest. My initial suspicions were confirmed as the bird turned to face us, revealing an obvious dark chin strap from several angles which also showed up on the record shots we managed to obtain. It was at this point the adrenaline hit me as I realised the magnitude of the find! Given the presence of two individuals in Mount’s Bay overwinter and the relatively short distance between the sites, this record almost certainly relates to one of those individuals. However, this did nothing to diminish the buzz of finding a site first and my first patch BB rarity (after local birder James Machin found a Pallid Swift over my house last autumn). Isn’t it great when a patch birding prediction comes true – now remind me to start going on about Red-billed Tropicbirds next time I’m at the pub!

Voting

Thank you for reading through all of these fantastic submissions. Now it is time to vote! We are looking for the best find, this doesn't have to be a rare bird, simply what you deem to have been the most interesting account or the best species to have been found at that particular patch. The top three all recieve a Patchwork Challenge champion pin badges. 

To cast your vote, please choose three of your favourite entries and click the link here to cast them! Voting will close at 6pm on 17th July. 

This competition will be run again come the end of the end of the year, for the autumn edition. If you have any suggestions or potential gifts or sponsorships to use as future prizes, then please get in touch! Thank you so much to everyone who has so far taken part in or followed PWC2026, be that participants, engagment on our social media or just reading the monthly blogs. Hopefully you will continue to enjoy! 

All the best, 

The Patchwork Challenge team