{"id":1837444,"date":"2018-01-05T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?guid=7026dd792184234d2e5441af0ec612a5"},"modified":"2019-12-23T01:26:49","modified_gmt":"2019-12-22T12:26:49","slug":"birding-highlights-of-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/birding-highlights-of-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Birding Highlights of 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

The birding wasn’t bad with ten lifers eventually plucked out following a very slow start. January saw Pine Bunting added and then the next tick didn’t come along until 11th June when the Elegant Tern was found down at Church Norton.<\/p>\n

In July I manged to get on the Marsh Sandpiper at Cliffe Pools in Kent. I then waited until September for it to kick off with Least and Stilt Sandpiper along with Citrine Wagtail, Arctic Warbler, Pallas’s grasshopper Warbler and Red-throated Pipit.<\/p>\n

October saw me put in a few miles before getting on the Common Rock Thrush in Gwent for my last tick of 2017. I also had a couple of armchair ticks when both Purple Swamphen and Blue Rock Thrush got accepted.<\/p>\n

The life list now stands at 382 leaving me trying to find eight in 2018 with the hurdle of 400 in my sites. The year list reached a respectable 274 but it’s getting harder to put in the miles for the year ticks. The best bird was the Rock Thrush.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Rock Thrush<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Arctic Warbler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Red-throated Pipit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Blue Rock Thrush added this year after being seen in 2016<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Bee Eaters had to be one of my favourite outings of 2017<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Bluethroat a little cracker!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A cracking day on Handa Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A good year for Crossbill<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Bird of the year!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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It was a good year for Fox activity locally.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Kingfishers played a part again this year<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Best views ever of Woodlark<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Exceptional views of Turtle Dove<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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No shortage of Short-eared Owl action<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A local celebrity<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Stonking views of Ring Ouzel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A noteable Redstart<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Ridiculous Red Kite<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A Mountain Hare treat in the Findhorn Valley<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Worse twitch of the year…PGT at Burnham<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A little star in Shropshire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Roll on 2018 and the arrival of the first Swallow again<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Star bird<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Sadly 2017 will also always be remembered as the year I lost my best friend. RIP T<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The birding wasn’t bad with ten lifers eventually plucked out following a very slow start. January saw Pine Bunting added and then the next tick didn’t come along until 11th June when the Elegant Tern was found down at Church Norton. In July I manged to get on the Marsh Sandpiper at Cliffe Pools in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1913,"featured_media":2148862,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6984,5],"tags":[2451,739,935,8760,7787,2756,8993,388,786,2760,2215,1684,184,4125,787,8158],"class_list":["post-1837444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-wildlife","tag-blue-rock-thrush","tag-bluethroat","tag-citrine-wagtail","tag-crossbill","tag-kingfisher","tag-marsh-sandpiper","tag-mountain-hare","tag-purple-swamphen","tag-red-kite","tag-red-throated-pipit","tag-redstart","tag-sandpiper","tag-short-eared-owl","tag-stilt-sandpiper","tag-turtle-dove","tag-woodlark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1837444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1913"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1837444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1837444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2148862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1837444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1837444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1837444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}