Musings...........

As we are nearing the end of the 3^rd quarter of the year, I thought I would review my year of birding to date.  Besides the odd twitch here and there, a couple of weekends away and my week in Spain, I have been trying to stay as local as possible.  I estimate that although I have been staying as local as possible, I have amassed the same kind of mileage as I did last year due to the frequency of my birding.  The main down point is that even though I have done the same mileage as last year, the rewards are way down on the number of species I have actually seen in comparison.

Local birding has not been that rewarding for me and while I have honed my skills even more on common species, I feel that I have trailed behind on those birds not often seen which leads me to believe that twitching in moderation to see a new bird and specifically to watch it and it’s behaviour is not a bad thing as it improves one’s skills in the field.  Anyway, this brings me onto thinking that it could just be that the 5 mile radius from my house is a genuine birding black spot which very rarely may cough up the odd unusual bird like Golden Plover, Waxwing and Brambling in the winter but nothing of much interest any other time of the year.  This then would mean in order to find any birds, I would have to extend my local birding to a 15-20 mile radius which then doesn’t really count as local does it?  So, I may as well resort to what I did last year which is drive to where the birds are, which is either to the North of the County or completely out of the County.  A bit sobering and depressing really.  Well, I have 3 more months of the year left to try and keep it local but don’t hold out much hope.  Of course, it could that I may be wrong and birds are falling out of the sky around me which would leave me to believe that (1) I am a crap birder and can’t see things in front of me (2) there are more birders in the area than I am aware of, who basically do not communicate their findings and suppress (3) there is definitely good habitat in the area but I have not yet found it despite scouring local maps (4) there are some rarer breeding birds in the area but those sites are quite rightly kept quiet to avoid disturbance.

I do love birds and birding, but it is always refreshing to see different birds from time to time which helps keep the interest more alive.  So, whether I am right or wrong on the lack of birds near Warwick, I expect my birding habits will be changing again next year (unless I can find a decent patch close by).