Birders love keeping lists of the birds they have seen - in the whole world, in specific geographical areas such as continents, countries and counties or in smaller areas such as a local 'patch' or their own garden. Some people keep lists of birds they've seen from a moving car, or identified without binoculars, or seen in movies (presumably not including nature documentaries which surely would be cheating).
Lists can be a great way of making birding even more fun than it already is by bringing an element of competition into it - even if you're only competing with yourself or a small group of friends. As with anything, listing can be taken to extremes - such as in the film The Big Year (based on a true story) where three people attempted to beat each other to the record for the most species seen in the US & Canada in one year, or the case of the birder who left his wedding reception to race after a new bird for his 'British List'.
Although I have never gone to such extremes, I do keep my fair share of lists - I have a list for every country I've ever been in, a list of birds I have found for myself in Britain and Ireland, a list for my local 'patch', and even one of birds that I have identified in my sleep (there's only one bird on this list - during a trip to Portugal I dreamt I heard a European Serin singing, only to wake up and realise that it was a real one singing outside my bedroom window).
In 2010, while I lived just outside Vancouver in Canada, I was part of a group of birders in the area who kept lists of birds seen using only 'non-motorised transport' (NMT-lists for short). It was a great incentive for me to get out birding as often as possible - and also to get lots of exercise as I racked up hundreds of kilometres cycling all over the Vancouver area, and to meet brilliant people I wouldn't otherwise have met. Sadly I had to leave before the year was over but in nine months I added 155 species to my NMT list including several that were completely new birds (lifers) for me and some that I still haven't seen anywhere else - notably Great Grey Owl, Cinnamon Teal and Black Oystercatcher.
Every year since moving to Middlesbrough I have been toying with the idea of doing an NMT year here, and I have now decided that 2021 will be the year. I am going to use the same rules we did in 2010 - I can count anything I see having journeyed from my house without using a car, bus, motorbike, power boat plane etc. Once I have used any form of motorized transport I can't count any more birds until I go back to home and start again. By these rules, I could cycle to the North York Moors from my home in North Ormesby, and come home on the train but I wouldn't be allowed to add anything to the list after I got onto the train until I get back to the house. Unfortunately the same rules apply to the Tees Transporter Bridge, which, despite the name is actually a motorised form of transport, so I am foreseeing a few long cycle rides to areas north of the river this year (I can use it on the way home though).
I made a small start on my NMT 2021 list today, which is New Year's Day, with a walk around a couple of my local patches - North Ormesby Middle Marsh (part of which has just been made a nature reserve), and Middlesbrough Dock. It was fairly quiet, birdwise, but the undoubted highlight was a Woodcock (Scolopax rusticola) which was almost my last bird of the day - it was flushed by dog walkers and flew past me, as I was walking through the new Nature Reserve just as the light was starting to fade. Other unusual sightings were a female Blackcap (this species is best known as a summer visitor although small numbers spend the winter in Britain now) and 3 Mute Swans doing something I have never seen before - stretching up to graze on green algae on the wall at the edge of Middlesbrough Dock. As soon as I came along they stopped doing it and came towards me, expecting bread I think, so I didn't get a good photo.
My list now stands at 25 birds - I've included the whole list at the bottom of this blog. From now on I will post weekly updates with new birds and the number they are in the list. There are several easy species missing from the list, including Dunnock, Wren and Great Tit, but that is the nature of birding.
#1 - Herring Gull - also first bird of the year of course
#2 - Pied Wagtail
#3 - Feral Pigeon
#4 - Blackbird
#5 - Carrion Crow
#6 - Jackdaw
#7 - Magpie
#8 - Goldfinch
#9 - Long-tailed Tit
#10 - Black-headed Gull
#11 - Robin
#12 - Mallard
#13 - Cormorant
#14 - Great Black-backed Gull
#15 - Mute Swan
#16 - Moorhen
#17 - Redshank
#18 - Bullfinch
#19 - Blue Tit
#20 - Blackcap
#21 - Starling
#22 - Woodpigeon
#23 - Song Thrush
#24 - Jay
#25 - Woodcock
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