ZooChat Big Year 2015

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TeaLovingDave said:
An excellent taxon to get for your 200th of the year, and a lifer too :D amazed it has taken you so long to see one, though!
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Third time lucky Dave. They're difficult away from mull with very few reliable sites. This time I was in contact with a local who told me the best time to go and the best places to look, without this local knowledge I doubt id of got it.
 
The Isle of Skye is a pretty reliable spot these days; all but one of the wild WTSE I have seen were there :) I suspect more and more places will become hotspots as the decades pass.
 
Today I was in Bern for a meeting and managed a second swift species within a week:

129. Alpine swift
 
I'm still on 57 species for the year, but I thought I'd just throw this out here:

A chap called Noah Strycker is attempting a record Global Big Year (the current record is 4341 species). His website is here Birding Without Borders | Audubon and his progress is listed here The Species List | Audubon

He started the year in Antarctica, then went up through South and Central America, and is soon to enter the USA. At the moment he is on 2448 species.

Unlike Alan Davies and Ruth Miller (from The Big Twitch, who got the 4341 global record basically by throwing money at tour-guides), Noah is doing it backpacker-style. As he puts it, "rather than hiring international tour guides, I’ll spend my time with passionate locals—individuals who care about their home patches, and who are making a difference for birds in their own areas.....I’m packing super light. Everything—binoculars, a tiny laptop, malaria pills, a mosquito net, water-purification tablets—must fit in one small, carry-on backpack. My bulkiest item is a compact Leica spotting scope. I might take an extra pair of underwear."
 
those two guys are heroes.

I'd like to do a Global Mammal Big Year though. That'd be cool. Birds are too obvious!
 
Hevden said:
Didn't manage to id any crossbills just had frustratingly brief flyovers but did manage to finally catch up with a long awaited lifer and reach 200 at the same time.

198. Redstart
199. Wheatear
200.White-tailed eagle
201. Hooded crow
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A couple of hours in Norfolk this morning added quite a few more including a surprise stone curlew away from the usual site.

202. Dotterel
203. Turtle dove
204. Stone curlew
205. Swift
206. Corn bunting
207. Grasshopper warbler
208. Whinchat
209. Red-crested pochard
210. Little tern
 
ThylacineAlive said:
I've had a busy and bit of a stressful past couple months so I've sort of fallen out of keeping up a list but here's a few that I know I've seen:

Birds
12) Dark-Eyed Junco Junco hyemalis
13) American Robin Turdus migratorius
14) Ring-Billed Gull Larus delawarensis
15) Common Merganser Mergus merganser

And one mammal lifetick (yes, full lifetick) that may surprise some of you:

Mammals
4) Northern Raccoon Procyon lotor

~Thylo:cool:
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Birds
16) Mourning Dove Zenaida macroura
17) Mute Swan Cygnus olor
18) Bald Eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus
19) Turkey Vulture Cathartes aura
20) Carolina Chickadee Poecile carolinensis
21) Grey Catbird Dumetella carolinensis
22) Black-Crowned Night-Heron Nycticorax nycticorax
23) Great Blue Heron Ardea herodias
24) Tree Swallow Tachycineta bicolor
25) Mallard Duck Anas platyrhynchos

~Thylo:cool:
 
143. scarlet honeyeater
144. spotted pardalote
145. australasian gannet
146. rock warbler
.
I'm having a very slow year. Hopefully it will pick up next month when I go hunting out western NSW. I've also got a trip to Tasmania coming up in August.
 
while walking home tonight through Hagley Park...

4) Brush-tailed possum Trichosurus vulpecula
 
lintworm said:
Today I was in Bern for a meeting and managed a second swift species within a week:

129. Alpine swift
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Another species from Bern

130. Yellow legged gull

And yesterday on a hike to the Chasseral, the highest peak in the Swiss Jura I got some other species

131. Common wheatear
132. Black kite

Mammals
12. Alpine marmot
 
DesertRhino150 said:
Went on a visit to Fingringhoe Wick Nature Reserve today, where in the past week there have been up to 30 singing nightingales and 5-6 easily seen per visit. Unfortunately, my visit coincided with high winds so although a few brave nightingales continued singing, they all stayed out of sight. Indeed, the only new bird of the trip was seen from the car less than a minute from my house:

116. Common swift Apus apus

But Fingringhoe wasn't a total bust, as we did manage to find a new reptile for the year list; this is only the second time I have seen this species in the wild - the first time was on my last visit to Fingringhoe several years ago:

3. Northern adder Vipera berus
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Went on a two-hour trip to Old Hall Marshes this morning - as well as seeing plenty of birds of prey including marsh harriers, kestrels, buzzards and a peregrine falcon and hearing a tawny owl, I did manage to see two new bird species; one on the drive to and from the reserve and one on the reserve proper:

117. Common house martin Delichon urbicum
118. Whimbrel Numenius phaeopus
 
Back from four days in East Anglia - as well as attending the (excellent) Bartlett Society event (Banham Zoo, Shorelands, Africa Alive!/Suffolk) a few of us stuck around to do some birding (and, indeed, mammalling, though mainly accidentally!). It was very productive - including a number of lifers (hobby is a 'technical' as I didn't have a recorded sighting but the others marked below are, to the best of my knowledge, completely new wild species for me). We also had some good 'heards' (Cetti's Warbler, Tawny Owl, Eurasian Nightjar among them) that I'll need to try again for this year! :D

In all, 21 new year birds and 5 new mammals as below:

132. Common Linnet - Linaria cannabina
133. Green Woodpecker - Picus viridis
134. Sedge Warbler - Acrocephalus schoenobaenus
135. Egyptian Goose - Alopochen aegypticus
136. Eurasian Reed Warbler - Acrocephalus scirpaceus
137. Whinchat - Saxicola rubetra
138. Northern Wheatear - Oenanthe oenanthe
139. Barn Owl - Tyto alba
140. Dartford Warbler - Sylvia undata
141. Common Tern - Sterna hirundo
142. Little Tern - Sternula albifrons
143. Eurasian Spoonbill - Platalea leucorodia
144. Great Bittern - Botaurus stellaris
145. Eurasian Hobby - Falco subbuteo
146. Great White Egret - Ardea alba
147. Bearded Reedling - Panurus biarmicus
148. Common Nightingale - Luscinia megarhynchos
149. European Turtle Dove - Streptopelia turtur
150. Eurasian Stone Curlew - Burhinus oedicnemus
151. Tree Pipit - Anthus trivialis
152. Common Cuckoo - Cuculus canorus


16. Chinese Water Deer - Hydropotes inermis
17. Common Seal - Phoca vitulina
18. Least Weasel - Mustela nivalis
19. Reeves' Muntjac - Muntiacus reevesi
20. Stoat - Mustela erminea



For comparison/interest purposes, the UK-only totals are 148 and 17. And at least some of the above species will be appearing in a post from another thread participant in due course! :D
 
Ituri said:
201 Calliope Hummingbird - Selasphorus calliope
202 Yellow Warbler - Setophaga petechia
203 Yellow-breasted Chat - Icteria virens
204 Bank Swallow - Riparia riparia
205 Lazuli Bunting - Passerina amoena
206 Nashville Warbler - Oreothlypis ruficapilla
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207 Spotted Sandpiper - Actitis macularius
208 Wilson's Phalarope - Phalaropus tricolor
209 Red-necked Phalarope - Phalaropus lobatus
210 White-throated Swift - Aeronautes saxatalis
211 Black-chinned Hummingbird - Archilochus alexandri
212 Dusky Flycatcher - Empidonax oberholseri
213 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher - Polioptila caerulea
214 Bullock's Oriole - Icterus bullockii
215 Black-headed Grosbeak - Pheucticus melanocephalus
216 Vesper Sparrow - Pooecetes gramineus
217 Lark Sparrow - Chondestes grammacus
218 Warbling Vireo - Vireo gilvus
219 Western Tanager - Piranga ludoviciana

1 Pond Slider - Trachemys scripta
2 Painted Turtle - Chrysemys picta
3 Tiger Whiptail - Aspidoscelis tigris
4 Common Garter Snake - Thamnophis sirtalis
5 Western Terrestrial Garter Snake - Thamnophis elegans
 
Maguari said:
at least some of the above species will be appearing in a post from another thread participant in due course! :D
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How did you know?

184. Whinchat (Saxicola rubetra)
185. Barn Owl (Tyto alba)
186. Dartford Warbler (Sylvia undata)
187. Kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla)
188. Little Tern (Sternula albifrons)
189. Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos)
190. Turtle Dove (Streptopelia turtur)
191. Stone-curlew (Burhinus oedicnemus)
 
Ituri said:
207 Spotted Sandpiper - Actitis macularius
208 Wilson's Phalarope - Phalaropus tricolor
209 Red-necked Phalarope - Phalaropus lobatus
210 White-throated Swift - Aeronautes saxatalis
211 Black-chinned Hummingbird - Archilochus alexandri
212 Dusky Flycatcher - Empidonax oberholseri
213 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher - Polioptila caerulea
214 Bullock's Oriole - Icterus bullockii
215 Black-headed Grosbeak - Pheucticus melanocephalus
216 Vesper Sparrow - Pooecetes gramineus
217 Lark Sparrow - Chondestes grammacus
218 Warbling Vireo - Vireo gilvus
219 Western Tanager - Piranga ludoviciana

1 Pond Slider - Trachemys scripta
2 Painted Turtle - Chrysemys picta
3 Tiger Whiptail - Aspidoscelis tigris
4 Common Garter Snake - Thamnophis sirtalis
5 Western Terrestrial Garter Snake - Thamnophis elegans
Click to expand...

220 Black-throated Sparrow
 
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