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Thoughts on what constitutes a wild bird, a species and the impact on bird lists

    Little Owl, a UK introduction almost universally accepted as tickable on a UK list Many birders keep bird lists. These, for example, might record the number of birds seen in the UK, worldwide, or a particular country or area. Two issues arise when deciding what birds to include in such lists, what constitutes a species and how to identify a true wild bird as opposed to one which has escaped from an aviary. In this blog I will give my own personal thoughts on this somewhat controversial topic. My thinking on this issue will be guided by objectivity wherever possible driven by my scientific background.   The former is perhaps the easiest of these two issues to address. Modern affordable and rapid DNA sequencers provide the ability to study birds DNA rapidly and economically. It should be hence possible to define the level of DNA divergence between two birds  necessary for them to be recognised as separate species. Delving a bit further , there are a number of other aspects to conside
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A ridiculously confiding Lapland Bunting at Staines Reservoir

  The Lapland Bunting is certainly not a bird I expect to see annually. In fact, the last one I saw was 4 years ago on the Malvern Hills. So when a very confiding  and photogenic male was found on the causeway at Staines Reservoir in Surrey I planned a trip to see it. Other commitments determined that the first day I could go was Friday just gone. Given that it had been there a few days already, I decided to wait for it to be reported before setting off as crawling around the M25 to dip a bird I have seen before was not very appealing! I kept an eye on both RBA and our excellent “Twitching the UK and Ireland” WhatsApp group and was pleased to see it reported on our group just before 08:00. Oddly, it didn’t get reported on RBA for another hour so it was a good job I was not solely reliant on that source of information.   The causeway on the reservoir is quite long so I parked at the end where it was mostly being reported from and walked up to the causeway. The last time I was here was a
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Victory snatched from the jaws of defeat – A Red Eyed Vireo at Durlston Country Park in Dorset

  The Red eyed Vireo is a comparatively common migratory bird in North America. Every Autumn a very small number are blown off course by storms and end up in Europe. The Colins bird bible rates it as a one star rarity equating to less than ten UK records per year. It is therefore a somewhat surprising omission from my UK bird list. In fact, I’ve not even ever dipped one! BOU lists 172 previous records the vast majority of which only stayed one day. So this is a definite case of snooze you lose.   There are  33 species in the true family of Vireos, a purely new world species, only 3 of which are on the UK list. The  Philadelphia Vireo and Yellow throated Vireo being the other two both of which have only been recorded once. They superficially resemble old world warblers but are not related to them.   On Sunday just gone one was reported at 08:15 at Durlston Country Park just outside of Swanage so I checked with my ever suffering wife and left home on the 3 hour journey to the site. It wa
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An Isabelline Shrike in Dorset

       My birding this year seems to have mainly consisted of hours spent staring into dense vegetation looking for rare warblers. It has, however, delivered six new Warblers for my UK list, something I would not have imagined possible at the start of the year. Shrikes have the very opposite behaviour trait, often perching on the top of a bush in full view. So when a rare Isabelline shrike was discovered in Dorset it seemed like a good opportunity for some fairly laid back birding and photography. I have seen one before, a somewhat bedraggled youngster in foul weather in Devon a few years back.   Its location near Gillingham has fond memories for me being very close to where I grew up in the small village of Hindon. My dad was a bus conductor at the time and I have lovely memories of traveling on the bus with him as a small boy on the old Wilts and Dorset double decker bus from Hindon to Zeals a mile or so from Gillingham. Those were the good old days when buses were considered to be a
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Shetland Autumn 2024 part three, Pallas’ Warbler and Red-backed Shrike

   Pallas' Warbler Reading my blogs may give you the impression that autumn in Shetland is nonstop rare birds. Its not. There are always slower periods in a ten day stay. My blogs tend to concentrate on the big rarities but there are always slow days that, in all honesty, can be quite hard work. As in the rest of the UK, it’s all critically depended on having reasonably strong winds from the west or east. This year it was all about eastern winds and birds with hardly a sniff of anything exotic from north America. If truth be told, there’s not much else to do on Shetland at this time of year so slow days can be very hard going. Most days, however, there is at least something in terms of scarce drift migrants to go and see and photograph.   On Wednesday 9th October    a very rare American Nighthawk was reported on Yell. I thought about going but decided to wait for further information, mainly because I saw the Oxford bird so well a couple of years back. It’s a good job I did because
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Shetland Autumn 2024 part two, Shetland delivers a red letter day – Pallas' Grasshopper and Arctic Warblers!

Arctic Warbler I guess the main reason for me coming to Shetland is the prospect of seeing very rare birds. It's great to see and photograph the scarce drift vagrants but it’s the thought of seeing something I have never seen before which really gets my adrenaline flowing. The list of new birds I have seen in Shetland in the past two years alone is mouth-watering, Swainsons’ Thrush,   Pechora Pipit, Lanceolated Warbler, Myrtle Warbler,   Least Bittern, Veery,   Eastern Sub-Alpine Warbler, White's Thrush and Yellow Warbler. The thought of adding more to this wonderful list of rare birds is what keeps me coming back. On Monday Shetland delivered the goods big time again!   I started the day at the now dilapidated and closed Orca Inn in Hoswick where a very confiding Snow Bunting had been reported. I would hope to see Snow Buntings every year and there is normally an overwintering flock on the cliffs at Eshaness in Shetland. It's very exposed there with no natural cover making
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