A GOOD BIRDING YEAR
Posted: 14.01.22 in Articles category
My website articles for January sometimes focus on looking ahead. For example, in January 2017 I wrote ‘A Fresh Start’ and last year I wrote ‘First Birds’ about ticking off familiar species with a sense of excitement as they were new for my annual list. Yet I haven’t written about looking back. I have not written a website article about reviewing the previous year and remembering its birding highlights. It is now time to make amends as I recall 2021. Personally, it was a good birding year.
What made it ‘good’ for me? Although it wasn’t the year that I saw my highest total of species in Northumberland (the list I keep each year), my figure of 208 in the county represents my second best total and is only 2 species short of my best. Moreover, that total included 5 ‘UK lifers’ – 5 species of bird I had never seen in the UK before. That’s a significant addition for someone who currently doesn’t leave the county to see new birds. I am not a ‘twitcher’ in the usual sense of being willing to travel across Britain to see new birds, although I sometimes regret that I don’t when I see photos of them like the Black-browed Albatross which spent last summer on the Yorkshire coast or the Belted Kingfisher currently in Lancashire. Seeing new birds in the UK is therefore special for me and I have fond memories of the quintet I saw in 2021: Northern Mockingbird, Pacific Swift, Red-necked Stint, Red-throated Pipit and Soft-Plumaged Petrel. I greatly enjoyed seeing each of the five, but the ‘stand out’ star of the bunch was the Pacific Swift which I saw mid-morning on 12 June flying over a local lake. I had gone out birdwatching that morning with no expectation of seeing anything rare, but I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time when an obviously unusual swift with a white rump was spotted in the flock of swifts feeding above the water. Initial views were distant, but the bird came closer and at one point flew directly over my head at close range! Wonderful – a bird normally found in Japan and the first record in the county.
Yet my best birding moments last year were not about new birds. Instead, I flash back to sitting by a tiny holiday cottage we rented for one week in September. We were on Seil Island just south of Oban and the cottage we were staying in had a back balcony that jutted over the sea. The views generally were stunning, looking south towards Jura and an archipelago of islands, but it was the bird sightings that made it all the more special. Hearing the agitated cries of gulls, I looked up to see two young White-tailed Eagles fly close by. It’s almost a cliché to talk about barn doors, but WTEs are truly massive. That week we had 3 local sightings, plus views of 6 other species of raptor within 1 mile of the cottage including Peregrine, Hen Harrier and even Golden Eagle. Wow!
All that said, my best wildlife highlight in 2021 wasn’t a bird. I read the news one November morning on the local birding WhatsApp and I twitched to see it that afternoon, dragging my wife along for the experience. Sizeable crowds were in Seahouses harbour to see it too… or should I say ‘her’. For I had gone to see a female Walrus – previously named ‘Freya’ by German observers and the very same animal seen earlier in the year on the Welsh, Irish and French coasts. Freya was approachable and much photographed in the autumn sunshine, but voluntary wardens were thankfully on hand to stop people getting too close and causing her distress. Freya had gone by the next morning and her quick departure led to speculation about the health of an animal so far south of her Arctic home. However, the good news is that Freya has been seen again, this time resting by a salmon farm in Shetland and hopefully on course to head back north.