2015 was my first full year in the UK. I tried to get as much birding done in between family and work commitments, though admittedly much of my birding time was spent on twitching. I didn't develop into a top-class twitcher, though in 2015 I twitched an island for the first time - Great Blue Heron on Scilly:
Another exciting bird was the Acadian Flycatcher in Dungeness - the first for the Western Palearctic.
In March I did a short fieldwork session in Portugal and Spain where I got to spend quality time with my research subject - Great Bustard.
In 2015 two dear friendships developed and intensified. James Lowen became my partner in crime in many twitches. Scotch eggs, laughs and lots of good birds together. Bessos, James.
I had the honour and privilege to spend a week on Shetland with Martin Garner. Through Martin I met many other lovely people who became my friends too. With winds blowing in the wrong direction for the entire week, birding was hard work, but we did connect with a Shetland specialty, Pechora Pipit, and I found a Blyth's Reed within the first hour of birding on the island.
Highlight of the week was of course the people - thank you Martin for making this happen.
Peter Colston, the late Martin Garner, moi, Paul Harvey and Roger Riddington
Full annual summary here.
Happy Hanukkah!
ReplyDelete