Sean Foote - North Portland #PWC2016 part 1

Here is part one of Sean Foote's video diary of his year on North Portland for #PWC2016. Future installments to follow. Its a damp but very decent start for Sean.

A start to PWC 2016 - James McCulloch

We are always super keen on 3rd party generated blog content and its especially good when we get an enthusiastic newcomer to the competition. James McCulloch is a 12 year old birder who has been working his East Surrey patch of Hedgecourt Nature Reserve and Domewood. Here is how he got on:

Day 1

On the first day Tony Davis came to my garden to do some bird ringing for the first time. I was worried that we wouldn't catch anything and hoping we would catch loads! As soon as he arrived he proved his ears are much more attuned to bird calls than mine as he quickly heard the rattling call of a Lesser Redpoll. You should've seen my face: that was the first Lesser Redpoll in my garden for 3 years! He didn't stop there though, he also heard a Siskin, only the 2nd garden record!

As our garden sometimes has 3-figure counts of Redwings in the winter, he played the Latvian Lovesong on a speaker near the net, which is a recording of Redwing song. That didn't work though so we changed it to Redpoll song. If we caught a Lesser Redpoll I would be amazed! The morning went by with just the usual tits biting holes in my fingers and the odd Robin, Dunnock, Blackbird and Goldcrest. Half way through the morning I went inside to warm up my cold hands while Tony extracted the birds. He came away with a disappointing 2 birds, but he refused to tell me what they were until I took them out of the bag. He only said that both species I hadn't ringed so far this morning. The first bag revealed a female Chaffinch, which I thought was the one that kept visiting my bird table (we only get one at a time). However, Tony said that the number of birds that visit your garden is the maximum count of that species multiplied by ten. That certainly puts a new perspective on things!

The second bag was much more exciting (for me anyway)! It didn't bite... it was relatively small... it was a male Lesser Redpoll! I'm extremely grateful to Tony for tempting that red-crowned gem into out garden.

Day 2

The weather was poor but I decided to visit Hedgecourt Lake anyway to see what was around. It turned out to be one of my best visits!

First of all I found a drake Scaup in a group of Pochards, a first for me in the UK as well as the patch. Unfortunately I didn't get very good views of it but it wasn't doing anything anyway. My first 2 pointer of the year!

Suddenly a flock of 100+ Siskin erupted from one small Alder tree, wow! Definitely a patch record and great to see.

A gull species on a buoy far out into the lake looked suspicious. It had yellow legs. Large but not bulky like a Caspian (unfortunately)! My first Yellow-legged Gull! Rather unseasonal but still 2 points.

Then I spotted a duck fly from right under my nose towards the far end of the lake. The white wing pattern was distinctive: Goldeneye! Could this day get any better??

It did! We were just about to leave the lake when I stopped and saw something large climbing some reeds. It was very well camouflaged and I struggled to find it even with my binoculars and it wasn't too far away. A Grey Heron flew over and the bird raised its head to look, which revealed a paler throat making it easier to see. Once I knew where it was I had a good view, it was right in front of the reeds. I was looking straight at a bird that has eluded me for years at Hedgecourt, an incredible Bittern! Below is a poor photo of it:

Day 3

Today looked even worse than yesterday but I still managed 4 new species. My parents were clearly not willing to accompany me to Hedgecourt so I walked to our local farm in the rain, which wasn't so bad as I found Nuthatch and Marsh Tit in a tit flock, both species that had disappeared during the first two days. When I reached the farm the first field was disappointingly bare apart from two Carrion Crows. The second field was more exciting, however. There was a flock of medium sized birds, which were very flighty and most flew away before I had even stepped into the first field. Some stuck around though, every last morsel is precious in the winter months so for a flock bird I suppose it is better to risk a small chance of being eaten by me and get extra food than fly away and not get any food.

I crept up to the fence separating the two fields and got my wet binoculars on a few of the birds. The flock turned out to be a mixed flock of Starlings and Redwings, Starlings and new bird for the year. Worth the wet knees!

The final new bird of the day came after dark, which I was not expecting. It was about 5:30 and I heard a call from outside. It was unlike any Tawny Owl I had every heard. Try whistling at a very low pitch quickly 4 times and that was almost exactly what I heard. I went through all the British owl species on Xeno-Canto as well as some really rare ones just in case. I was quite amazed when I listened to the Long-eared Owl call, it was identical!

I was really pleased when I read in the rules that the bird could be either seen or heard! Yippee!

Day 4

I managed a visit to Hedgecourt in the late morning during a dry interlude but there weren't as many birds as yesterday. I couldn't find any of yesterday's star birds or any new species.

But in the afternoon I had an opportunity to visit Wire Mill Lake, which I added to my official patch boundaries without having visited it before. Wire Mill Lake is a lake as long as but narrower than Hedgecourt Lake and it is mainly used for water-skiing which may explain why there are less birds on it than Hedgecourt. However, there were 3 Cormorants, 2 Mallards, 3 Moorhens, 50+ Goldfinches and 16 Fieldfares in an orchard along with the abundant species (Blue Tit, Woodpigeon etc.). Out of those Fieldfare was a new species and the first I've seen all winter, strangely. Maybe I just don't visit enough sites with Fieldfare habitat.

So, at the end of the first four days, I have 45 species, 49 points, 193 BirdTrack records and a competitive ambition to get to 100 species by the end of the year. 

James' blog - https://jiainmac.wordpress.com/ details his passion for Natural History,

PWC2015 Nick Moran - Thetford

The dizzy heights of 130 species/155 points, back 2013, were already a distant memory by the time I hit the wall on 124 spp/139 pts in 2014. However, having a more ‘normal’ year – minus any 6-pointers and missing the likes of Common Crossbill and Marsh Harrier – did at least reduce my comparative score to an altogether more realistic 147. All I had to do was pot all the reds and screw back for the yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black…

OK enough ropey snooker songs from the 80s; what did #PWC2015 bring to the Thetford area?

 

JANUARY

87 species | 94 points (63.95%) | 2^nd in Points table

2,070 BirdTrack records | 47 Complete Lists

It took me until 22^nd March to reach 87 species|94 points in 2014. Even in the year-to-beat, 2013, that total wasn’t achieved until 6^th March! 2014 began at my folks’ in York (handy for a quick dash for the Fraisthorpe Little Bustard on New Year’s Day!) and I didn’t get out on patch until 3^rd January. That didn’t seem to matter though, as there were 4 Pochard waiting for me on day 1. December’s Great Crested Grebe became the first I’d seen on patch in January (they usually vanish from the Brecks in winter), and both Barn Owl (which took until 29^th April in 2014) and wintering Chiffchaff (not guaranteed locally) obliged. Two days later was the first red-letter day: my first Pink-footed Goose since April 2011 (OK perhaps ‘origin unknown’ but we all tick Barnacle Goose!) and a Yellow-legged Gull, a good 2-pointer to lay to rest so early. Things kept improving: a Marsh Harrier (7/1) – a species I missed altogether in 2014 – was my first local winter record. Then, at long long last, a Caspian Gull appeared (12/1). It’s a shame that a Norfolk description species, a site first and true #patchgold only scored two points! Incredibly though, I went on to log three different individuals by 25/1, so perhaps two points is about right after all. An early Shelduck (13/1) was good, though a drake Mandarin Duck (17/1) was a real bonus, my first on patch for more than two years and a 2-pointer to boot! I didn’t have to wait long for two more bonus birds either: Grey Partridge and an exquisite male Bearded Tit (both 19/1), the former not annual in recent years and the latter only my 4^th patch record. Goosander (20/1) and Barnacle Goose (23/1) were useful additions; the goose was absent from my PWC2014 list. My record January finished in style too: exactly one year to the day after I added Jack Snipe to last year’s tally (31/1), I scooped one for 2015! There’s always something missing by the end of January: this year’s obvious gaps, poised to pad the list later on, were Linnet and Mistle Thrush!

 

FEBRUARY

95 species|105 points (71.43%) | 2^nd in Points table

3,654 BirdTrack records | 84 Complete Lists

Another good month began with ‘catch up’ Mistle Thrush (3/2). My earliest-ever Curlew and a fine 2cy Goshawk (8/2) – my first in February – were next, followed by Linnet (13/2). Little Owl and another patch February tick, Woodlark (19/2) obliged on Thetford Heath. Next up was Peregrine (22/2), before returning breeding Oystercatcher (26/2) rounded off the month. One of January’s Caspian Gulls appeared early in the month, and I logged February Shelduck and Chiffchaff for the first time too. Considering that Inland East Anglia contains several sites in the Broads, not to mention the fabled Paxton Inland Sea, I was staggered to discover I was still in 2^nd place 59 days into 2015! There’s a marker for you, Mr Rankin.

 

MARCH

98 species|110 points (74.83%) | 3^rd in Points table

5,154 BirdTrack records | 113 Complete Lists

March can be a bit flat locally and 2015 fitted that pattern, though a Stonechat (12/3) on Thetford Heath was good. Ringing at the Nunnery Lakes reserve produced a surprise Common Redpoll (23/3) in a poor winter for that (soon to be ex?) species, and a Belgian-ringed Lesser Redpoll. The last PWC2015 addition for the month was Stone-curlew (29/3), while Pink-footed Goose and Woodlark were both patch March ticks.

 

APRIL

117 species|132 points (89.80%) | 2^nd in Points table

7,195 BirdTrack records | 152 Complete Lists

Returning summer migrants were interspersed with some true #patchgold in THE month to be birding a Breckland patch. There was galling news on the 2^nd as a pair of croaking corvids were added to the Nunnery list by two colleagues and patch-interloper (and jammy g*t) Ben Moyes, while out filming with Iolo Williams. Fortunately (presumably) the same two Raven (3/4) flew over calling while I was ringing the next day: I was VERY grateful for that #patchgold grip-back! My first Swallow also appeared that day. Willow Warbler and Red Kite (7/4) were on cue, the latter being most frequently recorded here in spring. Shoveler, Blackcap and Cuckoo (9/4) were an odd trio of firsts of the year: Blackcap are often evident by late March, whereas ‘our’ Cuckoo may well have been the earliest in East Anglia in 2015. Whitethroat and House Martin (11/4) were followed by Sand Martin and Ring Ouzel (12/4). Although unusually high numbers of Ring Ouzel graced East Anglia in spring 2015, this was the only one seen around Thetford. Conversely, there were three individuals the previous April. Sedge Warbler (13/4) and Reed Warbler (14/4) were more or less on time, while Wheatear (22/4) was late for the first local sighting. Another three-tick day saw Garden Warbler, Swift and best of all, Nightingale (24/4) added to the list. Lesser Whitethroat (25/4) and Green Sandpiper (26/4) rounded off a great month.

 

MAY

118 species|133 points (90.48%) | 5^th in Points table

8,204 BirdTrack records | 172 Complete Lists

The only problem with April inland is that it is followed by May! Traditionally a good month for rarities on the coast, May sucks for new birds on my inland patch. That said, Spotted Flycatcher (14/5) proved to be one of just two local records this year; depressing, particularly as I caught a recently-fledged juvenile in my on-patch garden last year. Pink-footed Goose, Yellow-legged Gull, Stonechat and Meadow Pipit get honourable mentions as May patch ticks.

 

JUNE

120 species|135 points (91.84%) | 5^th in Points table

8,963 BirdTrack records | 189 Complete Lists

Common Tern (16/6) was welcome as I had missed it in two of the previous six years. Hobby (26/6) was my latest first of the year by exactly a month, while Mandarin and Woodlark were June ticks.

 

JULY

121 species|136 points (92.52%) | 5^th in Points table

10,098 BirdTrack records | 214 Complete Lists

The only addition this month was Redstart (23/7) but that’s another one not to be sniffed at, having been absent from my patch year-lists in 2010, 2012 and 2013. Cuckoo and Mandarin Duck were new for July; Cuckoos usually stop calling here in mid June and then go undetected until any juveniles appear in August. The other highlight was breaking the 10,000 BirdTrack records barrier!

 

AUGUST

127 species | 144 points (97.96%) | 4^th in Points table

11,190 BirdTrack records | 238 Complete Lists

August proved to be the last decent month on patch. Waders are always very thin on the ground through lack of suitable habitat so it was great to get my 6^th and 7^th records of Greenshank (3/8 and 27/8) in six years. Common Sandpiper (25/8) appeared on just two dates in the last week of August, a poor showing for a species that averages 4–5 records a year. Passerine goodies came in the form of a Firecrest (19/8) found by fellow Nunnery Lakes patcher Neil Calbrade, my second-ever Tree Pipit (23/8) and 3 Yellow Wagtail (27/8), a scarce migrant locally. Spring Yellow Wagtail records are invariably fly-over singletons, whilst the last ten days of August is the only period I’ve recorded them on the ground and in groups. True to form, the 2015 birds were a small flock of juveniles that dropped in to spend a morning with the cattle. The month ended for me with #patchgold, as BTO HQ evacuated for a fly-over Osprey (27/8), detected simultaneously by staff in at least four different offices – thanks to its three attendant Oystercatchers! Unfortunately August had a real sting in its tail as the month ended proper with a hugely gripping two-observer Wryneck. I heard about it first-hand as I walked out to Scolt Head on the north Norfolk coast: not where you want to be when a patch mega breaks! Despite several people searching for it that afternoon and me putting in 12 hours over the next 3 days, it was never seen again. On a more positive note, patch month-ticks featured an eclectic mix of Shelduck, Mandarin Duck, Little Grebe, Goshawk, Lesser Whitethroat and Mistle Thrush.

 

SEPTEMBER

128 species | 145 points (98.64%) | 4^th in Points table

12,007 BirdTrack records | 259 Complete Lists

September: great month for coastal patches, a write-off inland. Or at least, in the Brecks. The same or another Osprey (9/9) was great to see and Green Sandpiper (11/9) was a surprise September tick but the only addition was a fleeting Whinchat (16/9).

 

OCTOBER

129 species | 147 points (100%) | 5^th in Points table

13,450 BirdTrack records | 291 Complete Lists

October is fickle: previous years have boasted such local megas as Common Scoter and Little Gull but equally it can be a(nother) quiet month. Such was the case in 2015: the only points – my last of the year – came in the form of the first Cetti’s Warbler (31/10) on patch since they bred in 2009. Herring Gull was a month tick…though reading the (metal) ring on what proved to be just the 8^th German-ringed Cormorant to be found in Britain – while it was very much alive and well – provided much more satisfaction!

 

NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER

129 species | 147 points (100%) | 5^th in Points table (after November)

15,568 BirdTrack records | 335 Complete Lists

The Cetti’s Warbler remained into the New Year, adding itself to three month lists in the process. Apart from that, a Caspian Gull (25/11) would have been big news had it not been for the glut of them in Jan/Feb, and a Jack Snipe (11/12) made 2015 only the second year in which I’ve had more than one record.

 

So that’s it. Lots of local, green birding and bird-recording, some good birds and all enhanced by the sense of community and wider perspective brought about by Patchwork Challenge. A big thanks to all involved in making it happen and bring on #PWC2016…preferably with at least one bonus pointer, given that it’s now more than two years since the last one!

#PWC2016 Admin

So you have signed up, you have been birding and you have scored some points. But how many? And are the boundaries you have decided upon within the rules? How do you record your score? What is this fabled spreadsheet? How do you send your scores in and how often? Here we will answer all of these commonly asked questions. There are no silly questions and we forget how alien this all is after 3 years of Patchwork Challenge so it is good to revisit the fundamentals.

How do I sign up? If you are viewing this on a mobile device you will have to scroll to the bottom of the blog and click on web view which should magically make the right sidebar appear. Once you are in Web view on the right hand side there is a form (actually as this is written there are two) - fill in the one which is titled Patchwork Challenge 2016 registration. We need to know your name and your patch name. We dont need any other personal details like email address or shoe size as we dont want superfluous information that could cause data protection issues. If you know your minileague fill this in, if not put the closest town or your county and whether you are inland or coastal. If you arent going to use a car then tick Green and if you are under 25 you are welcome to join our Next Gen Birders/A Focus on Nature minileague. Hit submit and we have your data. Thats it.

Mobile view 

Are my boundaries ok? How big can my patch be? You are allowed up to 3km2 for your patch and this can be any shape but with qualifications. Yes it can be a long wiggly line or two close sites linked by a corridor or an irregular splodge. What it cant be is a disperate spiderweb in order to capture a number of sites over a wider area. A patch should be an area you can work without driving within it. As you can count birds at sea when this isnt mapped we feel that you shouldnt have to map waterbodies and you should be able to count all birds seen from or in your patch. Don't map lakes, reservoirs, rivers or the sea. Do think about whether it is a cohesive patch. If you decide to change your boundaries without a good reason (windfarm/housing estate/change in access) then you wont be able to use a comparative score (more on that later). If you want us to check your boundaries then email us at patchworkchallenge@gmail.com. There are mapping tools here.

Radde's Warbler - Tommy Corcoran

Go birding. As often as you want. We strongly encourage you use Birdtrack to record your sightings in order to give them conservation value and it provides a personal database for your data. There will likely be a prize for the most Birdtrack complete lists submitted.

Little Stint - Henry Cook

When you get home you need to enter new species seen into the Scoresheet. You need to download this and open it in Excel for the macros to work. This you fill in with the species name in the species column, the date and if it is a 3 point or better bird and you found it then put an f in the find column. There are some odd subspecies rules which we regret ever introducing but for a roundup look here and here. You will have to add subspecies points manually but aside from this the spreadsheet tallies your species and points for you. Before you ask about something obscure or White Wagtail/Taiga Bean Goose/Greenland White-front/Pale-bellied Brent Goose then the answer is no - they are too common as is Scandi Rock Pipit. The subspecies needs to be on the list on the second link or a RIACT subspecies. If you are having trouble entering a species name try using the second tab (and note the idiosyncratic way Feral Pigeon is listed). Once again - if you have problems then email us.

Wryneck - Scott Mayson

How do I submit my score and how often? At the moment we take scores monthly with a submission form similar to the registration form which asks for number of species, points, birdtrack lists, highlights and any bonus points you scored in the month. Points are cumulative as are birdtrack lists. We need your total score and not what you added in the month. The form is normally on the blog from the 25th of the month until the 5th of the following month so approximately 11 days. We then process it and scores start coming out a few days later as we write articles.We normally have a monthly best find round up on the blog and a magazine article on Birdguides which both come out in the third week of the month. Finally it will all be changing once the coding is finished for our new website which has just finished beta testing. This should be in the first quarter but our coder is a busy boy so we don't have a concrete time frame yet. When this is up and running the scoresheet will underpin recording although it wont look like it and we hope to have live league tables so that you can affect how they appear on a day to day basis as you find birds.

Perhaps the rarest bird on the page. The Askernish Magpie - Ian T.

Finally what are the comparative scores? This is our way of comparing Fair Isle to Fairburn, North Ronaldsay to North Duffiels and Titchwell to Titchfield. For those new to the competition dont worry about them as we need a benchmark year within competition (effort levels tend to go up in competition so previous benchmarks aren't usually valid as we found out in #PWC2013). Your comparative score is expressed as a percentage of your average score. The average score is the rolling 3 year mean of scores within competition so some of the original patchers are using their 2013 score for the last time.

Any other questions not answered above please feel free to e-mail or message us on social media (we have a Facebook Group and account  and also a Twitter account @patchbirding. We will be sure to respond quickly. Otherwise, go birding!

PWC2015 Jonathan Farooqi - Hadston Carrs to Druridge Pools

As a 15 year-old working a patch isn’t always easy. For most of the year I’m limited to birding only at the weekend which of course means I often miss birds on my local patch at Druridge Bay. I decided to do Patchwork Challenge in 2015 to try and get even more pleasure out of seeing the common birds, and as a way of getting a bit more motivation to get out birding.

My patch covers part of the Northumberland coast south from Hadston Carrs to Hemscott Hill including the nature reserves of East Chevington and Druridge Pools. In the end I had a pretty good year in the bay despite there not being many ‘proper’ rarities…

The year got off to a surprisingly good start with self-found Green-winged Teal and Black-necked Grebe on my first day on patch. The Grebe lingered into March and was later joined by an adult Black-throated Diver and a Long-tailed Duck, all on the same pool! The next highlight was an early February passage of Little Auks when I managed a count of 87 in two hours. 73 Whooper Swans on one pool at East Chevington were also great to see.

The weekend of the 12^th of April saw the arrival of quite a few summer visitors along with a Great White Egret. Early May provided me with a welcome and long-awaited patch tick in the form of a Black Redstart at Hadston Carrs and was followed by an influx of waders including good numbers of Wood Sandpipers, Ruff and Black-tailed Godwits. An adult Little Stint also made an appearance along with the first of three Garganey and a flock of four superb Temminck’s Stints.

Two Spoonbills were a welcome addition to the year list at and a Cuckoo provided some brilliant views. Having missed them in Northumberland on numerous occasions, I was extremely pleased when a Hobby flew low over East Chevington. My highlight of the year came on the 10^th of September when the first-summer male Red-footed Falcon found the previous day at Hemscott Hill reappeared and stayed just long enough for me to see it.

The first of three Yellow-browed Warblers arrived later in the month. Another highlight was finally managing a good view of a Bearded Tit on patch when a male gave itself up at East Chevington. Taking part in #patchday I saw a total of 84 species including two year ticks in the form of Bittern and Great Northern Diver.

Two adult Greenland White-fronted Geese joined the Pink-feet in early December. The same day also produced three unseasonal Little Gulls and a couple of Short-eared Owls. My first patch Merlin for three years put in a brief appearance, and three days later I saw my first ever Water Pipit on the patch along with two further patch year ticks on the same day; Kingfisher and Slavonian Grebe. Finally the Long-billed Dowitcher which had been present just of my patch appeared briefly at Druridge Pools, providing me with my first ‘4-pointer’. There were also 3 Water Pipits the same day! 

In the end I accumulated a total of 179 species for a total of 249 points. Am I glad I did Patchwork Challenge this year? Absolutely, I feel like I’ve got a lot more out of my patch than I would normally, I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone. A target for my second year will be to improve on my measly score of 6 bonus points! Bring on 2016…

Jonathan Farooqi

http://jonnysbirdingblog.blogspot.co.uk/

Bubo Combined List

This year we will be supporting a worthy bird charity with a donation equivalent in pounds to the combined list of species that the competitors manage to accrue. Last year we managed over 320 species which will mean a £320+ donation to the BTO. We will be deciding on the charity or appeal soon but in the meantime we need your help to keep track of the number of species we have seen. We do this by keeping a list on Bubo and this has open access. The username for access is Patchwork Challenge and the password is Patching. To add a species first go to my lists, highlight the 2016 list and then go to add species or batch edit. If you find a bird new to the challenge please add to the all time list as well. You can do this by ticking the add to multiple lists option within the add species page and highlighting the life list option. Please fill in all the fields, especially when referring to rarer species including noting where you saw the bird and who the observer was in the notes. Now did anybody add anything decent today?

Welcome to #PWC2016

Welcome to this years competition. I wasnt planning to write this as I messed about with finishing off last years data and setting up the spreadsheet for this years competition but there has been such a buzz on social media with the start of the new year that I thought I would bring you a few highlights. Contestants new and old have been getting in touch with how they are faring and some of their best bits so far. As we start there are 369 patches registered which is up on this time last year making this the biggest Patchwork Challenge yet.

Nick Addey whose Scarborough patch was one of the high scorers of 2015 got us off with a bang as he squinted through his beer goggles and found the trio of roosting Black-necked Grebes in the harbour at 00:01.

Nick Addey - First species on the patch @ 00.01 hrs Black-necked Grebe #PWC2016

Joe Stockwell failed to add in the early hours but it appears he may have been impaired by intoxicating liquor which I imagine has slowed his start to the challenge this morning. Andy Hood, a new contestant who picks up Martin Garners baton at Flamborough, managed to open his account with the first patch Little Owl in three years for him and is currently up to 40 species with an Eider the latest addition. Ross Ahmed managed to add a Green-winged Teal which arrived at Bolden Flats just before Christmas. Its always good when a long-stayer doesnt do an overnight flit.

Craig Fulcher was the earliest riser to get in touch although his Woodpigeon that broke the 2016 duck doesnt set the pulse racing his Southwold patch will turn up plenty of good stuff over the next 12 months. Equally exciting was the Pete Antrobus's Robin at Neumann's Flash in Cheshire. This is another site that has been a mainstay of the Inland North minileague and turns up decent birds. Hopefully Pete gets off to a decent start.

The rather balmier climes of Poole Harbour now hold a plethora of players and Ian Ballam who patches Lytchett Bay started with a Blackcap/Spoonbill/Shoveler/Goldeneye combo whilst at Holton Lee new contestant Paul Morton got off to a flyer with 66 species.

Over in Inland East Anglia, Alison Allen was in the lambing sheds with little result so far but she has managed to add Lesser Redpoll, Brambling and Reed Bunting while Nick Moran (target of Jonny Rankin's #beatNick campaign) got off to a great start with 57 species/60 points including Barnacle Goose and drake Mandarin. I wonder how Jonny's hangover is going?

Barnacle Goose at the Nunnery - Nick Moran

 Finally in the Welsh uplands Geoff Morgan got off the mark with a Jack Snipe. A great start and always a tricky bird. As for me - I stuck my head out of the door on my newly added village patch and the mellifluous tone of a Blackbird rolled in. And a Crow.

Happy New Year from the PWC Team.