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Casual Euro-listing 2012 (1 Viewer)

StuartReeves

StuartReeves

Local rarity
It's been a few years since I did one of these, five years in fact, the last one being Casual Euro-listing 2007, which, in turn, was a rapid follow-up to 2006. For the benefit of younger listeners, who weren't around for the previous threads, it's not about me trying to see as many species as possible, it's more about just seeing what I see in my, mostly work-related, travels around Europe.

I thought I'd revive the idea this year, partly in a spirit of competition with my work colleagues back in England (of which, more later), and partly to restore a bit of edge to my birding given that Brussels is not quite in the same league bird-wise as the Suffolk coast where I was based before moving here last year.
 
January, UK

Visiting BF-er Mollymawk in Somerset over New Year, we spent the last day of 2011 visiting Lyme Regis to score Spotted Sandpiper and a rather fine café. The first day of 2012 was less productive, being a complete washout. I was due to return to Brussels the next day so my birding was limited to a brief visit to Chard Reservoir on the way to the station. This got me a reasonable cross-section of woodland and water birds but not the Ring-necked Ducks that we were hoping for. The only mammal was Grey Squirrel, but I added Rabbit and Fox from the train, along with a bonus Red Kite. At the Eurostar terminal I also managed a self-found celebrity tick: an adult male Jarvis Cocker.

Scores, UK
Birds: 49
Mammals: 3
 
January, Belgium

The Red Cloisters is an area of Beech forest and ponds on the edge of Brussels which is easily accessible from where I live so it has become the nearest thing I have to a local patch. The highlights of a mid-month visit were a handful of Siskin and Brambling, and, a couple of birds that I finally managed to convince myself were Willow Tits. Just the one mammal; the introduced and rather cute Siberian Chipmunk.

A walk in the countryside near Dinant added a few more bird species, the best being a scatter of Hawfinches and a couple of Bullfinches.

Scores, Belgium
Birds: 45
Mammals: 1
 
Work

My employers in the UK have two main labs, one in Lowestoft, and one in Weymouth. Inspired by a similar competition between the RSPB and the BTO, last year saw an enjoyable competition between the two labs to see who could record the most bird species on their local patch. Lowestoft won that match and are going for another team year list this year. I'm not sure if Weymouth are going for it this year, but I am! My office is in the concrete jungle of the European quarter of Brussels so if I went with a conventional local-area list I'd have no chance. Instead, I'm defining my patch in terms of time, so that all species I see while on work time will count. The list should take-off once I start travelling a bit, but so far the list is limited to the few species I've seen from my office window and the bits and bobs I've seen or heard in the local park on my lunchtime runs. So far, that doesn't amount to much:

Score: Work,
Birds: 9
 
dacoj3 said:
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=106060 ;)
Click to expand...

I didn't actually do any listing in that thread, I quote:

StuartReeves way back in 2008 said:
I was planning to give it a miss this year not least because, with no potentially productive work trips on the horizon, there was a real risk the thread could start dull then get worse. I'm also not good at remembering which common birds I've seen on my travels, which means that the listing bit can be hit and miss at best.
Click to expand...

Actually there is a similar potential for this thread to start dull and get worse, but this year I haven't let that stop me...
 
February, Belgium

With no travel yet this year, I haven't added much recently. However, a walk around the Parc de Woluwé today added three new birds to my year list. Firstly, a treecreeper showed well enough for me to convince myself that it was a Short-toed Treecreeper. On range, it's the only species that occurs here, but I like to think that I have some principles. Later, I heard a Green Woodpecker, in itself a year-tick, but while I was looking for it,another woodpecker caught my eye. It turned-out to be a smart male Middle Spotted Woodpecker, a local rarity and a nice year tick. A good showing of Red Squirrels also served to double my Belgian mammal year list.
 
The story so far:

UK, birds: 49; mammals: 3.
Belgium, birds: 57; mammals: 2.
Europe total, birds: 69; mammals: 5.
Work, birds: 13

Things should pick-up a bit next month when I should actually get to do some travelling.
 
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March, Denmark

My first ever work trip to Copenhagen was way back in the early 1990s. Thanks to a day off in the middle of the meeting, and some gen that I had managed to get by writing to someone (that's how long ago it was), I spent a Saturday poking around a large park in a Copenhagen suburb. This eventually led to superb views of my first Hawk Owl. That bird was over-wintering after an exceptional influx to Denmark earlier in the winter. Twenty two years later and the circumstances looked rather similar...

This time around a lull in the meeting meant that I had a morning when I could get away. My initial plan to get up and out at dawn fell foul of an unfavourable weather forecast, so I took a later start to sit out the worst of the rain before catching the train north. From the station, I walked through the drizzle to an area of swampy woodland and started looking. The mist added to the atmosphere but didn't help my chances of seeing much in the way of birds. I was pinning my hopes on an unfamiliar call from high in some nearby beech trees, even though I couldn't square the call with my memory of what my target was supposed to sound like. An hour and half later, with just a few common woodland birds to my name I was considering heading back to work when a local birder turned up. He confirmed that I was at least in the right area, but apologised that he couldn't hang around to help me look. He was about to cycle off again when he realised it might be helpful to point out the woodpecker hole that the bird had been using. I tried to follow where he was pointing, but instead of finding the hole, I found the bird! There followed a few minutes of strangely reversed tension as I struggled to get my companion on to the bird he had seen many times but which was a lifer for me! Eventually I managed, and I was finally able to relax and enjoy my much wanted first Pygmy Owl! I didn't have a camera with me, it was a work trip after all, but there are plenty of cracking photos from this winter's influx here. I didn't see the bird quite as well as this but the pic. is nonetheless the most evocative of my views of the bird.

The mystery call from earlier proved to have come from a Goshawk, which contributed to a modest Danish work list of 33 species.
 
That's a very nice lifer for a work-related trip!

Luckily I can cycle to work via my new local patch... I must be able to get a “work” list of over 100 without resorting to looking out of the window.
 
Thought I might join in with this, as I've one or two possibilities for causal Euro-listing forthcoming. Not sure on my UK year list so far (probably a bit over 100) but I spent yesterday morning doing some layover birding at Amsterdamse Bos in the Netherlands. It was rather a pleasant, if cool and misty, spring morning with plenty of stuff singing, including four species of warbler. I think the total was 51 species, with highlights including a singing Bluethroat, three species of woodpecker, Short-toed Treecreeper and displaying Black-tailed Godwits. Four Ring-necked Parakeets amused me too.
 
March, Germany

Four days in Germany entailed a flight to Hamburg then a train journey across the north German plains to Rostock. Clear sunny weather on the journey gave an opportunity for train-window gazing, which produced numerous Common Buzzards but not much else. The daily journey from the town to the harbour area, where the meeting was held, produced a singing Chiffchaff, and a few Black Redstarts. Interestingly, the crows in that area were Hooded, whereas those seen from the train had all been Carrion Crows. The journey back to Hamburg proved a little more productive than the northbound trip. First-up was a Red Kite. This was followed by the first of a few Roe Deer; my only mammal for this trip. Next up, was a real bonus; a young White-tailed Eagle perched in a lakeside tree. Ten minutes or so later, I saw a couple of distant grey shapes in a trackside field, that could only have been Common Cranes, but the views were so distant that I had some qualms about ticking them. Another Red Kite, and a few more minutes later, a much nearer and more conclusive flock of eight Common Cranes in flight, comprehensively dealt with that problem.

The score for Germany, a relatively modest 27, but all count on the work list.
 
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April, Jordan

It was a quick turn around when I got back from Germany as I had to be back at the airport the next day for a flight to Amman. Not a work trip nor, strictly speaking, a birding trip, but an organised trekking trip that would start at Wadi Dana and finish at Petra. While walking was the main aim of the game, I was pretty confident that I'd manage to pick-up a few birds along the way. And so it proved, with both local specialities and a few nice migrants among my tally. Highlights among the former included some smart displaying Syrian Serins in Wadi Dana; some equally dapper Sinai Rosefinches among the sandstone facades of Little Petra, and regular sightings of the highly distinctive Fan-tailed Raven. Amongst the migrants were numbers of bright Eastern (samamiscus) Common Redstarts, and Cretzchmar's Buntings, with a scatter of other goodies including Masked Shrike, Eastern Olivaceous Warbler and Eastern Bonelli's Warbler. Some days saw a good passage of Steppe Buzzard, with the occasional Steppe Eagle thrown in for good measure. Perversely, the desert produced my first wader of the year; a Green Sandpiper in an area of puddles resulting from some leaking water pipes. No big cats or exotic owls (though I heard a few Scops), but I did see one good mammal, a greyish, large-eared fox that was about the size of a hare. This proved to be a Rüppel's Fox.

Final tally, birds: 60; mammals, 1.
 
StuartReeves said:
It was a quick turn around when I got back from Germany as I had to be back at the airport the next day for a flight to Amman. Not a work trip nor, strictly speaking, a birding trip, but an organised trekking trip that would start at Wadi Dana and finish at Petra. While walking was the main aim of the game, I was pretty confident that I'd manage to pick-up a few birds along the way. And so it proved, with both local specialities and a few nice migrants among my tally. Highlights among the former included some smart displaying Syrian Serins in Wadi Dana; some equally dapper Sinai Rosefinches among the sandstone facades of Little Petra, and regular sightings of the highly distinctive Fan-tailed Raven. Amongst the migrants were numbers of bright Eastern (samamiscus) Common Redstarts, and Cretzchmar's Buntings, with a scatter of other goodies including Masked Shrike, Eastern Olivaceous Warbler and Eastern Bonelli's Warbler. Some days saw a good passage of Steppe Buzzard, with the occasional Steppe Eagle thrown in for good measure. Perversely, the desert produced my first wader of the year; a Green Sandpiper in an area of puddles resulting from some leaking water pipes. No big cats or exotic owls (though I heard a few Scops), but I did see one good mammal, a greyish, large-eared fox that was about the size of a hare. This proved to be a Rüppel's Fox.

Final tally, birds: 60; mammals, 1.
Click to expand...

Stretching the definition of 'Euro' a bit aren't we? If I can count Jordan I might do all right though! Some interesting stuff though - especially the fox.

The Black-winged Kite was definitely non-Euro, so that will have to wait for another thread!
 
Andrew Whitehouse said:
Stretching the definition of 'Euro' a bit aren't we? If I can count Jordan I might do all right though! Some interesting stuff though - especially the fox.

The Black-winged Kite was definitely non-Euro, so that will have to wait for another thread!
Click to expand...

Well, it was definitely casual birding, but "Casual-WP listing" doesn't have quite the same ring to it. I have a couple more destinations on the agenda which may not be strictly "Euro", but those can wait for later.
 
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