The Inevitable 2014 Post

Yes, here it is...




Ok, here is the entirely arbitrary Top Ten Birding Events of 2014! WOO!


10.  Double Trouble - Dusky Warbler and Franklin's Gull
    Proper twitching fun, with plenty of waiting, followed by getting two bogey birds. Said birds well seen and shared with my favourite couple of reprobates [who this time behaved and didn't plaster my poor mug all over the net - well done.]. After a year mostly spent dipping, it was a very welcome return to how things should be.


9.   Coal Tits
    My own place. My own feeders. My first birds. Happiness.


8.   A Bay Full Of Baitfish
   Brought all manner of delights in for most of the second half of the year - shears, skuas, terns, you name it!


7.   Those Storms
    From a mass of Little Gulls at the Nose, to a horde of GNDs, to my first Patch Scaup. Oh, and also propelled Dawlish railway station to national prominence..


6.   Ross' Gull!
    One of those Never birds. Didn't look that much on the ground, truth to tell, but when it took off...


5.   Lancasters!!! Oh, and a Temminck's
    More fun at Bowling Green. Lancasters, plural.. Oh such joy. With a bonus TS that was far too excited about the Lancs to remember to fly off after 10 minutes.


4.   WBD Frenzy, Part II
    Carrying on from last year, but even better! Not just continuing wonderful views of the Super Sabre'd One, but BTDs and Black Guilles and even a RNG at insane distances... Ho Lee Sheet.


3.   The Big One
    I will most likely never know where it came from, let alone what it truly was, but that falcon* at Wild Tor was simply breathtaking.


2.   Three Of Them...
    No places. No dates, even, but in 2014 I was honoured with three Goshawks on one day, including a wonderful view of an insanely close juv. male. Those magnificent creatures are pure wildness distilled into avian form. It don't get much better than this.


1.   OSPREY!!!!!!!
    Not only on Patch, at long long last, but out the window, so on my Home List too. Oh, such sweet sweet joy. That such a brief distant view gets Number One tells you how much this one means to me.




Right then, I am tempted to follow that with my lowlights of the year, but I'll limit myself to again bemoaning the lack of coverage at Berry Head in June. Especially on the 27th. Tut.




Right then...

Saturday saw me doing lots of boring non-birding stuff, managing to see the odd Blackcap but nothing sexier.

Sunday... Is another post.




[[*'That falcon that looked just like a grey morph Gyr', to give it its full name, but that kinda ruins the flow..]]