The Lincolnshire Bird Club

In the years I've been on the forum, I've often wondered why some of the more experienced birders when putting their sightings down, only put "the best of".

In the last week quite a few have been out and said they had x-amount of species and then telling us only the best of.

I try to always put all my sightings down, but before someone finds out I don't, of course I'm not perfect.

This week I've read where people have seen 50+ up to 85+ species, but only mentioned the best birds.

Of course it would take much longer to type out a full list, but it would also give the less experienced the chance to find out how they can increase their lists.

I'd be interested to know others views.

Regards

Max

Max

This is the list of birds I have seen this year.

They have been seen by visiting the following places and show what was missed that is normally present or has been seen recently. Also note that I have yet to see some common birds like Greenfinch, Song Thrush, Jackdaw, Redwing, Canada Goose & Meadow Pipit etc.
If all of the common birds and rarer recent sightings from the places visited missed were seen then the list would be about 100 species.


Alkborough Flats 1st Jan missed Green-winged Teal, Water Pipit, Spotted Redshank, Marsh Harrier
Far Ings 1st Jan missed Bittern
Barton Pits 1st Jan missed Red-throated Diver, Scaup
Waters Edge 1st Jan
New Holland 1st Jan
North Killingholme Pits 1st Jan
Cleethorpes 1st Jan missed Bar-tailed Godwit, Grey Plover, Brent Goose, Ringed Plover, Sanderling, Great-black Backed gull, Little Egret

Chambers Wood 2nd Jan
Nocton Fen 2nd, 3rd, 4th & 5th Jan
Boultham Mere 3rd Jan missed Bittern again
Branston Booths 4th Jan


75 of the following have been seen within a few miles from my house at Bardney
11 have only been seen In North Lincs (NL)

Barn Owl
Black Headed Gull
Black Tailed Godwit (NL)
Blackbird
Blue Tit
Bullfinch
Carrion Crow
Chaffinch
Coal Tit
Collard Dove
Common Buzzard
Common Gull
Coot
Cormorant
Curlew (NL)
Dunlin (NL)
Dunnock
Fieldfare
Gadwall
Golden Plover
Goldeneye (NL)
Goldfinch
Goosander
Great Crested Grebe
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Great Tit
Green Woodpecker
Greylag Goose
Hen Harrier
Heron
Herring Gull
House Sparrow
Jay
Kestrel
Kingfisher (NL)
Knot
Lapwing
Lesser Black Backed gull
Lesser-spotted Woodpecker
Lesser Redpoll
Linnett
Little Grebe
Little Owl
Long Tailed Duck (NL)
Long Tailed Tit
Magpie
Mallard
Marsh Tit
Merlin
Mistle Thrush
Moorhen
Mute Swan
Oystercatcher (NL)
Peregrine Falcon
Pheasant
Pied Wagtail
Pink Footed Goose
Pochard
Red Legged Partridge
Redshank
Reed Bunting
Robin
Rock Dove
Rook
Ruddy Duck
Shelduck
Short Eared Owl
Shoveler
Siskin (NL)
Smew (NL)
Snipe
Sparrow Hawk
Starling
Stock Dove
Stonechat
Tawny Owl
Teal
Tree Sparrow
Treecreeper
Tufted Duck
Turnstone (NL)
Water Rail (NL)
Whooper Swan
Wigeon
Wood Pigeon
Wren

My Best bird so far this year has to be the Lesser-spotted Woodpecker

Russell

Sorry Max, but it would take far too long to write out all of the species every time i input on to this forum. Just take it as read that i've seen robins, blue tits, dunnocks etc etc etc.

Russ,

Now that is what I call a comprehensive list. But I don't expect you or others to do it everytime, unless we need typing practice

Paul,

I'm not sure if your reply is tongue-in-cheek or not, if it isn't I apologise.

No I don't expect you to name every sighting every time, but it's not asking too much to do it sometimes.

I do take it as read that almost all of us see the tits, Dunnock and the usual garden birds during our days out. But when someone has seen 50 -100 birds in one session and only mentions say five of the best species, then we have to try and work out what the other 45 - 95 birds are. Surely you get my drift.

Maybe some of those birds not mentioned are on someone elses wanted list.

Thanks to both of you for taking the time to reply.

Max

An interesting question from Max on which I have two thoughts. Firstly the forum has been in part set up to encourage bird recording and submission of records across the county so regular contributions of full species lists from sites, annotated with counts would be very useful, however it would not necessarily make interesting reading unless those counts were unusual or involved unusual species.

Whilst I only put birding highlights from Gib on the forum, I ensure that all records contribute to the county records at the end of the year. I could not possibly write a list of every species for every visit on the forum. If I had that kind of time, I would be able to do a few more atlas squares!


Cheers

Kev

After much thought I now realise that entering full lists on the forum is not practical.

Regards

Max