Patchwork Challenge

As a new member of the team, my first job is to introduce myself. My name is Peter Williams and I grew up in a village close to Worksop in Nottinghamshire. My family were always very interested in wildlife and were active in the local naturalist society, so maybe it was inevitable that I would pick up the wildlife bug, it must be in the genes. I quickly found that it was birds that captured my imagination, and whilst I hold an interest in other aspects of wildlife, it was certainly our avian friends for whom I developed more of a passion and a modest level of expertise. My childhood was made up of local birding, not that I called it patchwork back then, but it wasn’t long before I was making lists for the wood at the back of my house and joining my father on the WEBS counts of local bodies of water, some of which could be entirely empty at times! Trips to the coast were only very occasional, Spurn or Flamborough being the main destinations of choice. Life dictated that I would be an ...

Hi there I'm Keith, or Snowy to my friends I'm a Leeds man born and bred and I've been a nature lover all my life, mammals were the big thing during my school years, birding didn't come along until later on.  When I was in my mid 20's, I was unlucky enough to lose my job, I won a college place within a month to start a new career, only to then get knocked back by the grant office as I was too late with my application to get in that year. I spent a year on the dole thanks to that set of jobsworths but it was a year well spent as I took up walking, one of my favourite walks was through woodland not far from home. I noticed the birds were different to those in the garden, so I borrowed my Dad's old 10 x 50 porros and started to have a good look at them. Pretty soon I'd bought a copy of Collins Birds of Britain and Europe (still got it even though it's falling apart) and my listing began.  Now 32 years later I've a County List of 273 (th...

I know that many of us like to get away for a few days/ weeks during the autumn and that we return to the same spot each year, a sort of autumn ‘away’ patch. Mine is Voe on the mainland of Shetland. For me it is ideal, lots of cover, large enough area to cover on foot in a day, a baker, a pub and of course a few birds to see. I got chatting with a friend on a survey recently chiding him for not entering PWC when he used the usual excuses of too busy, away a lot etc when he suggested a great idea. "Why don’t you have an autumn mini league for peoples away patches?" Now, his ‘away’ patch is Foula so I can see why he is keen but it got me thinking that this could be a bit of fun. Lower Voe Upper Voe I think that the rules should be relaxed slightly as well, perhaps the size of patch should be 5km squares or you can only walk your patch, no driving to it etc  (which will be fine for Spurn, Fair Isle, Foula, Voe)? The main rule change will be that only birds found wi...

My name is Mark and I am a patch addict. Since the age of twelve I've 'patched', be it the fields beyond my parent's house,  trespassing on old British Steel land or the more established local (to me) spots of Catcliffe Flash, Treeton Dyke and Rother Valley Country Park. All these at sometime or another have been my patch. But for one reason or another they always lacked something - usually birds. The old Orgreave Coking Plant viewed from my teenage patch of Catliffe Flash around 1989. In 1994 I discovered a pool at the top of the slag heap at the infamous Orgreave Coking Works and Pit. I say discovered but I’d long heard talk of the pool and eventually plucked up courage to trespass onto the site. Sure enough there was a lake, shallow and reasonably large. I had a few waders Ringed Plover, breeding Little Ringed, Green Sandpiper and best of all Spotted Redshank. A decent late summer roost of Lesser Black-backed Gulls - Yellow-legged and Caspian Gulls  weren'...

Thanks to your good selves, and of course the kind sponsorship of Meopta and Forest Optic , who donated £1 for every species of bird recorded on PWC 2013, we were able to make a donation of £315 to the BTOs Out of Africa appeal. This great work has allowed us to follow our cuckoos on their annual journeys into the heart of Africa - and considering the amount of time they spend here, has raised the question of whether we can call them 'our' cuckoos at all! The results of this fascinating project can be seen here . This year, we're doing something slightly different, although the cuckoo work is ongoing, and BTO have tagged a further 16 birds, who can be followed here , and perhaps more importantly, sponsored here .  This year we've decided that our donation will go to the BTOs House martin appeal , which will hopefully shed some light on the long term decline in this species that might have seen numbers decline by as much as two thirds. Again, the donation will b...

Joe Stockwell manages to grab hold of top spot after some huge scoring at the end of the spring whilst Kev Rylands manages to split the Portland boys but is now 20 points back from the leader. Sean Foote who was leading at the end of April has to be content with a 43 point cushion over Paul Bowerman in 4th. There were some cracking finds this month across the South West including Citrine Wagtail, Red-breasted Fly and Serin for Joe, Bonaparte's Gull for Martin Elcoate (who also had a Ross's Gull on patch) and Black Stork for Kev at Dawlish Warren. Marcus Lawson holds on at the top of the Comparative League with 86.4%. Roger Musgrove, after a monster year in 2013 is going well again as he gets to 83.6% in second climbing one place whilst Shaun Robson is in third with 80.7%. Paul Bowyer at Sand Point falls from second to fifth after no additions.

The best find of the month appears to be John Hopper's Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. There cant be many patches left with this species present so a bit of patch gold. This helped catch Ian Cowgill who failed to make any additions in May leaving John only 8 points behind. Nick Crouch keeps hold of 3rd place from Andy Mackay keeping the top three static. The general trend this month seems to be one of slowness with only a handful of decent birds and incremental additions to the scores. Hopefully this can perk up once those passage waders and moulting gulls start passing through next month... Dave Roberts has been ousted from the top and falls into third place despite reaching 83.7%. Matt Griffiths takes over at the top on a fine 88.1% and Nick Crouch is in second on 85.6%. Richard Harbird is unlucky to be in fourth with a fine 82.7% whilst Nick Self rounds it off with a very respectable 75.9%.

Who'd have thought that Bardsey would be the place to be after May! Wales has had some top birds this year but it's no surprise that a good run of migrants has put the two Bardsey residents out on top of the Wales minileague. Both Steve and Ben are in joint third in terms of the number of species seen, which means that their top spots reflect the quality of what they've been seeing. Ben is ahead by a single point at the moment - but I'm typing this on the day he found a Blyth's reed warbler so things might have changed a little! It looks like it might be a three horse race in Wales. Barry Stewart at Burry inlet is in third place, and is only 3 points behind the Bardsey Boys. Matt Meehan, Savi's points and all, is back in fourth, and is 14 points behind Barry. Is that a bridgeable gap? It's all looking very different in terms of comparative scores though. The Bardsey Boys are languishing in 6th and 8th places, and top spot goes to Henry Cook, who is 5% (...

Adam Bassett sits on top of the London league, but he's only a gnat's whisker in front of Nick Croft at Rainham (and Nick has one more species, so there must have been a little extra quality on offer at Little Marlow GP). However, Nick knows all about quality, and if there was going to be a prize for the best bird per minileague, it would take something pretty special to beat the Blyth's reed warbler that he found at Wanstead. Last year, Blyth's reed was good enough to make it onto our best find shortlist. It'll struggle to make it again this year, but it's still a tremendous bird, and the 12 point scored put Nicks Wanstead patch very close to Marek Walford in third place. Micheal Terry is the first in London to get past 100%, but Jason reynolds is pretty close behind with 97.8%, and Adam BAssetts high score sees him in third. All of the London leaguers playing against a comparative score are now over 75%. I'm not sure what this means - but I'll sp...

We're beginning to sound like a stuck record with the inland East Anglia league - as Jamie Wells remains out on top. Being 15 species and 20 points ahead, there's every chance we'll carry on sounding like a stuck record for a little longer. Yet again, Ben Lewis is in second place, and points wise at least, is a similar margin ahead of Ed Keeble in third. Third place is where the real competition lies in this league, perhaps, as Ed, Mark Nowers in 4th and Steve Swinny in 5th are separated by just 11 points. Mark and Steve are fighting it out in the comparative score league, with Jim Bradley coming between them in second. Mark and Jim are already over 100%. At the other end of the league - it looks like it's not being very productive at Maldon this year!