The eleventh and final post of my 2022 wildlife and photography highlights blogs: My bird and butterfly year in numbers

I wanted to end this year’s highlights blog thread by doing something I did enjoy doing from my old style highlights posts before I ended them, say a bit about the numbers of my year for my two most seriously taken year lists birds and butterflies which are always going to be a big factor of any assessment of the success of my wildlife watching year. And 2022 has been a hugely successful year for me, with my bird year list currently on 206 making it my highest ever bird year list which is something I am incredibly proud of. It has been a year of wonderful birding adventures and I have taken immense joy in building up this bird year list, really competing and ultimately beating my past year lists. For butterflies I saw 45 species making it my joint highest ever year list alongside 2021 and 2019. Repeating this was a delicate task as there’s only so many species I can afford not to see before it becomes not doable such is how much I saw in previous years and I had such fun getting everything lined up with species seen throughout the spring and summer months.

For my bird year list similarly to previous years it was a strong start, I saw my second highest ever amount of species after one day on New Year’s Day and I ended January on 125 species seen, my highest ever after a month of the year and level with my 2011 total which I was pleased with. It kept pace with my highest past year lists after that but the big moment to look back on was our April Pembrokeshire holiday where with the star seabird species targets of that week mixed in with migrant species we picked up it made my year list race ahead of where all of my others had been on those dates and it kept this position throughout my year after that which felt like something so special.

My butterfly year list kept pace with where my previous year lists had been on given dates and it was another year of butterflies for species seen I was over the moon with. For my three other year lists I keep; my dragonfly/damselfly year list this year is my joint second highest ever total alongside last year, my mammal year list is my joint highest ever total alongside 2019 and whilst I only began doing these again/seriously last year my moth year list this year is my highest ever with 40 species seen as in my amazing year of seeing moths this year they really came to the core of my interest. Of course it’s so much more than species names on a list, each entry represents a strong moment of connection to nature in seeing a species and a lot when considering every species of course I saw more than once. I love doing year lists and when I look back throughout my hobby in 2011 when I decided to start year lists mostly a birdwatching thing but I did it for the others too, it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made. The lists this year help paint the picture of why 2022 has been a phenomenal year of wildlife watching and photos for me and one of my best ever.

4 of my favourite pictures I took in April 2021

Brimstone butterfly at Martin Down

Wood anemone at Stoke Park Wood in Hampshire

Cuckoo at Thursley Common in Surrey

View at Durlston in Dorset

I felt like bringing back these month summary posts with the month number and therefore corresponding number of pictures of mine I choose from the past month as standouts going up to the number I used to include in every photoset at one time 4.

Well April was such an amazing packed month for me. Despite some colder weather and even a snow shower which presented marvelous landscape photo opportunities we have been so lucky with the weather this month with so much sunshine and blue skies which lent itself just as well for so many landscape pictures I was proud to take this month I did take in some breathtaking and beautiful views both locally and at other beauty spots as blossom, addictive light green and in places yellow oilseed rape has taken over the landscape with nice blue water scenes in the sunshine as spring well and truly took hold. It’s been so warm in places too and I have captured some beautiful sky scenes. I took an incredible amount of photos this month too maybe my most ever in a month especially over the packed and amazing Easter weekend and week off I had this month in stunning weather.

And for wildlife this month the resurgence of my bird year list started in March continued and took great pace. With as of Sunday afternoon when I typed this up and scheduled to post eleven year ticks over the Easter weekend, fourteen over the week off and one in between the Barn Owl and one after the Swifts I got twenty seven year ticks this month beating my previous highest ever amount in an April in 2014. All this allowed my lockdown restricted in the first few months of 2021 year list to soar to be in a place where only in my two highest ever year lists 2019 and 2018 had I seen more birds on that date and there were only a few birds in it in places where it had been behind many of my past year lists for so long. Helping this was a few days with high amounts of year ticks of the ilk I only normally see in January where everything is needed to be seen which really made me so proud and happy with what I was seeing as like I hoped the spring migration combined well with a few species we still needed to see and it was interesting having a few of the winter birds around still too. All of these ticks of course represented both locally and further afield a bird seen and we saw some of the most phenomenal birds of our year this month we really did have some of our best birdwatching times and most intimate and special bird encounters.

In the fine weather our butterfly year went from strength to strength, both locally like in March and on a lot of the special further afield days when I went on to see the common first ones to see in year as everything fell into place from Orange Tip at Lakeside to Holly Blue at Stoke Park Wood. We also delved into the rarer/more habitat or site specific ones as the month went on like Grizzled and Dingy Skipper at Martin Down and Duke of Burgundy at Noar Hill so things are ticking along very nicely there. I got to have some fabulous butterfly moments and take a lot of pictures of them with my macro lens too in so many bits of fine weather which I love doing.

19/01/2021-Mediterranean Gulls and more at Lakeside Country Park on my lunch time walk 

I took the first six pictures in this photoset as I walked down towards the lakes. I scanned the Black-headed Gulls on beach lake to take them in using the binoculars after two consecutive days of photographing one here and Weston Shore on Sunday and also to see if I could spot any Common Gulls after seeing two here on Friday the latest installment in the story of less common birds seen at Lakeside whilst walking there every day whilst working from home. It was that story, including views of both Common Gull and Common Tern over the past near year, alongside a sighting on the green out the front two springs ago that made me believe I could see a Mediterranean Gull at Lakeside for a while not something that is such a common sighting here in an urban area and really want to. And I thought I heard one of its distinctive wails on Friday that very unique call it does for a minute, something I did hear over the town in 2017 too. I had seen a few black-headed of late that had made me want to really check them just in case they were Mediterranean. 

And I had reason to do that today with the bird shown in the seventh picture in this photoset. I at first noticed the distinctive black markings around its beak actually which I noticed a lot in pictures I took of these birds at a more natural time of year early spring at a more natural place Hayling Island oysterbeds nest sites the past two years, then its masked black head and finally comparing it to the Black-headed Gulls when out there the gorgeous white wing tips which I hadn’t often explored with this bird compared to the Black-headed’s black and my Mum taught me only recently. I could see this was a Mediterranean Gull. And I picked out from the birds in the sixth picture another when zooming in at home. I had seen this bird and yet again it was something I predicted like the Common Gull when I first saw it and this felt fantastic. I did have a read of a post I did the day I saw the Mediterraneans at Hayling in 2020 for another reason the other day so maybe I foreshadowed it. It just goes to show if you scan a group of birds that you might think are all the same bird you never know what you might find. This was a stunning species to see. 

It was my second earliest sighting of one in a year after 2nd January 2017 at Radipole Lake in Dorset which was great and its a third traditional spring bird I’ve seen this year already. This one always the bird that tells me spring is near I tend to say but I see this as a winter sighting, whilst Robins singing yesterday made me look forward to spring. This is really interesting in terms of where we are in the planet and climate change now I think a little. Something that really brings me hope for spring which is such a simple intoxicating and powerful thing about nature. A strong theme today with the return of the wonderful BBC ‘Winterwatch’ tonight an edition of my favourite TV programme which like its spring and autumn counterparts is promising and in the first show tonight proving to be a great tonic in these times. Quite interestingly for the third time Mediterranean Gull beat the arguably commoner Lesser Black Backed Gull onto my year list and this was the third time this happened to me. I felt amazing seeing this bird today and like I could absolutely squeeze another valuable and precious stunning bird moment and amazing natural moment into my working day. It reminded me I think today the time of the year we’re in with still a decent few birds I am yet to see this year and some of them can be seen so locally on a lunch time walk on a working day which under normal circumstances I would be in the office and wouldn’t get. So I felt very positive at seeing this bird. 

11/10/2020-Phalarope paradise at Pennington: The 10 pictures in this photoset different to those I tweeted just now 

As you may have seen we went to Bushy Park yesterday on our big wildlife watching and photography trip which is a part of a day trip we do every year which I loved and was one of the best times of our year without a doubt. I always try to not do trips like that further afield with so many photos and sightings on a Sunday and have to go to work the next day (even when it’s working from home) it just makes me tired and hard to find motivation for the morning and fully cool down from the trip a bit so after the weather putting us off Bushy last Saturday Bushy was locked in for yesterday. On Friday we learned of the mega bird a Wilson’s Phalarope with Grey Phalaropes at Pennington in the Lymington-Keyhaven nature reserve at the foot of the New Forest. We instantly knew we’d go there today then we didn’t even have to decide. In hindsight I can say that phalaropes do stay around a few days it seems when they do turn up as they are always birds blown in by Atlantic storms on migration and that’s how they end up in Britain they stay a few days to feed up before flying off again. But I have got to say I did just have a little feeling of slight desperation last night as every tweet I clicked on seemed to be have a picture of the Wilson’s Phalarope! Which is remarkable in itself really. 

People from Hampshire and far and wide (as we observed in person here today for the latter) were coming to my beloved local and one of my favourite nature reserves and getting criminally close views of this very rare and stunning bird and the Grey Phalaropes that I needed to see for my year list too. I just had in my head that I’d feel maybe a bit bad if I missed it being at one of my spots but I had one of my best times of the year at Bushy so I would never have regretted going there and I would not have swapped it for the world yesterday. And finishing the weekend off at Pennington worked it’s a trip much more suited to a Sunday being half an hour to forty five minutes away from us. And I have a feeling yesterday in terms of social distancing many people would be there. Today it’s a Sunday so perhaps some people do other things and there were not hoards here today and it was easy to socially distance when here today. The feelings of “I want to go and see this” gave me interesting twitcher’s vibes. 

So with the strong memories of Bushy still engulfing me in amazement of the experience yesterday I was also so excited to get back to Pennington for the first time since last month on a very sunny afternoon today. I took the first three pictures in this photoset of nice views here today. As we walked down to fishtail lagoon the one that usually always hosts the rare birds interestingly here where the Wilson’s Phalarope had been seen we got binoculars views over the lagoon and noticed a phalarope fly and land by a bank. It was so tall compared the grey and red-necked we are familiar with which the Wilson’s is so we were sure this was the bird. 

We then got down to the lagoon on the pathway and walked towards some people. To our delight right beside the path in the channel south of the lagoon was one of the two Grey Phalaropes around! Like we had seen of one further down here in 2017 we got stunning views of it. It really was so close, it did not seem bothered by people at all. It was simply amazing views and I loved watching it swim down the channel. My first of the year. 

The Wilson’s Phalarope had flown out into the lagoon so we looked for it. Someone then spotted it by the fence of the lagoon coming into the channel further up. The channel is a flooded bit of ground outside of the fence really. We walked down and were astounded to see it right beside us in the water as it swam in and out of reeds. We got absolutely stunning and remarkable views of it. I took the fourth and fifth pictures in this photoset of this incredible bird. This one wasn’t bothered by people either and we just saw this smashing and beautiful bird so close. It was a dreamlike experience to see a bird like this so close. Special stuff. I was in my element watching it as phalaropes do swim up and back along the channel. It showed off its attractive yellow legs at certain points and got on with what it was doing without a care in the world. It even tried to get back through the fence onto the main lagoon at one point which was interesting to see. 

So this is a new bird for me, my sixth this year now only one behind how many I saw last year and level with how many I saw in 2017. It’s my 272nd bird in my life and with the Grey Phalarope my first of the year today takes my bird year list to 186. So my year list is still solidly my third highest ever for amount seen on this date behind last year and 2018, I am only four behind my 2017 total now. But this for seeing a new bird this was something else. The last time I got views this good for a new species I think was my first Crested Tits at RSPB Loch Garten in the Cairngorms in January 2018 and the Barred Warbler at Titchfield Haven weeks before it at the end of 2017. It was telling it was a good view of a new bird as for the pictures I took of it I didn’t use my bridge camera so long distance specialist once but used my DSLR and big lens the whole time it was that close which this camera and lens is so good for usually to see something new now it’s gotta be rare like this was so it’d be a long way away but that’s not always how it works with phalaropes. They are known to be approachable because they can be a bird of the wilderness in their natural range so are less used to humans so seeing them come and behave like this here is quite something. 

We walked on up to Keyhaven lagoon and back noting decent numbers of Wigeon and Shoveler which was really interesting to see some coming in for the winter now, we also got chatting to some lovely people as we did for the whole walk and twitch today who pointed out a Peregrine to us the first we had seen for a while. We also took in some great views as the sun came back after going in a bit including the sixth and seventh pictures in this photoset. When we walked back beside fishtail lagoon the Grey Phalarope was still parading up and down in the channel of water so close to us. We took in more stunning views of this beautiful bird that we missed seeing last year but was now my eighth occasion of seeing one, once in 2009 here, twice here in 2017 as well as at Blashford Lakes and Hayling Island oysterbeds that autumn, twice in 2018 on the River Itchen at Riverside Park and here the next day the same day we saw another new bird the Temminck’s Stint and now today. I took the eighth picture in this photoset of this lovely bird. It was so close I had the idea to take some phone videos of the bird. 

We walked up to the proper channel of water east of fishtail lagoon where followed by observers the Wilson’s Phalarope had moved to. We got more sensational views of it here coming so close to many of us swimming along and I took phone videos of this too all of which I shared posts of from my Instagram earlier and tweeted whilst out today many people were doing the phone videos it was an interesting quirk of this twitch symbolic as another person remarked of how incredibly close the bird was to us. It was so delightful to watch the Wilson’s Phalarope as the bird swam about in the later afternoon sunlight. A real fantastic autumnal moment and stunning birdwatching one. I took the ninth and tenth pictures in this photoset of the Wilson’s Phalarope. A great vibe and atmosphere we were all so in aw of the bird. 

Before we left we saw the Ruff with a white head that we saw here our first of the year in February with another of its kind which was nice I tweeted a picture of that. This ended one of my best and happiest times of the year this weekend and ever. I saw sensational wildlife and views and took so many pictures. The two trips further afield and local complimented each other so well I think. It was two perfect high standard days to follow each other in great weather. Such joyful times I shall never forget this weekend! Thanks so much for sharing it with me and all your appreciation shown. I hope you are all keeping safe and well. Have a nice week.

05/04/20-Daily exercise walk at Lakeside 

We did another social distancing friendly very local walk from the house over to Lakeside beside it this afternoon on another very sunny day. It felt very spring like again with another Chiffchaff seen and heard well, lots of butterflies notably many more Small Tortoiseshell which was great and I even saw my first bluebells of spring. I photographed some in the second picture I took in this photoset as well as third of some purple flowers. I also got the fourth picture in this photoset of one a few lovely green trees about lately.

I’d taken the first picture in this photoset earlier today from home of two Starlings enjoying our bird bath in the garden. This was something I noticed from downstairs whilst working from home on Friday and took a simple brilliant moment to just observe and enjoy. At that point I did want to be in a position to photograph this behaviour of one actually dunking itself in the water I’d captured them during drinking from it before. This photo achieved that I think, taken from my bedroom window as I was struck but how brief the moment lasted on Friday so didn’t want to rush down and miss it or startle them. I may well do other versions of this photo if the behaviour continues in the garden. 

At Lakeside as we passed through the nature reserve I saw another butterfly for the first time in 2020 as one I’d hoped for today a Speckled Wood quickly darted past us. Just long enough to tell it was this brown and spotty beauty of a butterfly. This is a key early spring one again and all season butterfly so I was pleased to see even if it was briefly. This takes my year list to 7 now so its building very nicely this hot and sunny weekend during daily exercise building well on the sightings I’d had the week before last of butterflies. As the first place I ever saw them this was the third year running Speckled Wood had been a year tick at Lakeside for me so its a key species of the area. 

Alongside two butterfly year ticks and a spring bird year today yesterday and an interestingly come about mammal year tick as I mention below in this walk that’s five species I’ve entered onto my year list spreadsheets this weekend which is great I didn’t expect I’d be doing that really. The health of the nation must come first as I said yesterday I am only seeing these species and taking these outdoor photos because of our once daily permitted form of exercise outside and the walks we are taking are shorter than they’d normally be. We obviously stay two metres apart from everyone else when we’re doing these walks too. So I didn’t want this to come across that I am prioritising my year lists and photos over everything else I really and not and within the walks I am using what I see and capture as a little bit of escapism which helps stay mentally well I feel. I’m just making the point that I feel very lucky to be able to get out and be getting some year ticks in the very local area, the optimistic time of year means this is possible and it feels especially good to be able to spend some time seeing spring species. I feel this is something we don’t know if we’ll be able to do much longer in the coming months as the absolute need to uphold social distancing and take whatever government guidance comes for the good of the nation and key workers in the NHS, retail etc who are doing an amazing job right now and always must come first. But I have at least had these moments so far. 

I took the sixth picture in this photoset of the pre-sunset sky tonight to bring to an end another positive weekend. 

6/1/18-Blashford Lakes 

After another successful New Year’s Day of seeing birds and a morning and lunch break year tick during my first week of my new job, I was itching to get out and see some birds seriously again today and due to desires and weather forecasts there was only one place I wanted to head to. This is a reserve that I’ll have been visiting 10 years in February and I had an incredible year there last year, Hampshire & Isles of Wight Wildlife Trust’s Blashford Lakes. Its really a key destination for the continuation of foundation building of year lists as its habitat diversity allows such a range of species to be seen. Sure enough between coming here today and a quick drive around the fields at nearby Harbridge I got 19 more year ticks, meaning my year list currently sits at 57. 

I was aiming to get to 50 by the end of this weekend so I have already overachieved even if practically I maybe set that bar a little low. Blashford today allowed me to see a lot of what I call clean up year ticks so things I might have perhaps seen easily already but hadn’t which I did see and some really classy birds seen for the first time this year too. All coming together to be a massive number of birds seen for the first time this year today which I really enjoy and make the most of as it doesn’t really last long that happening. I will mention all of what I saw for the first time this year in the Harbridge fields now and not include them in the Wildlife Sightings Summary as I didn’t really get out of the car, but with the Blashford year ticks I will skim over with highlights telling the story of today but include all 12 in my Wildlife Sightings Summary. 

So just before reaching Harbridge a Buzzard beautifully soaring was a welcome sight as I had tried all journey to look for this one of my favourite birds. Next it was a Little Grebe on the river, followed by Greylag Geese in a field and Rooks. A few Egyptian Geese in a field was one of the things I suggested a quick pre Blashford Harbridge call in for and they were perhaps the highlight of it. A Cormorant and other of my favourite birds the Little Egret flying over would tie up a nice seven year ticks before even getting into Blashford. 

When there I first went to the Tern hide were seeing my crucial first Goldeneye of 2018 and loads of Lesser Black Backed Gulls stood out from the three year ticks I got from this hide. I say crucial as there’s not many places I can see Goldeneyes as easily as here so not seeing them here could lead to a bit of a wait/struggle to see them in a year like in 2013 when they were my bogey bird. When leaving the Tern hide I took the first two pictures in this photoset of the sky and a Robin. I then went to Ivy North hide, round to the centre to use the facilities getting a further three year ticks as I detail below, the Shoveler my milestone 50th bird of 2018. At the Ivy South Hide I caught sight of my first Pintail of the year, a bird I’d seen here only once before and am more used to seeing on the coast so that was impressive. A Common Gull was also out on the water, as I’ve said so many times a bird I always find satisfying to see and one I do well at identifying within my family. I don’t think I’d quite seen one this early in a year before so I was very happy with this.

Four more year ticks would prove to be waiting for me, two on route to the Woodland hide from Ivy South, one in Woodland and one when walking along the path after it. It was that second one on route that was the star bird today and this year so far. I just caught sight of an egret on the water in a gap between the trees and I knew the Great White was about. It flew as soon as I got the binoculars on it desperate to see the colour of its beak to identify it and thankfully it would land again facing me and I made out the orange beak of the Great White. This is a really amazing bird to see always and I didn’t see one until the summer at the Bird Fair at Rutland Water in 2016 and 2017 being a key target throughout the first eight months of last year. This beats common relative Grey Heron onto my year list which always entertains me as I say and seeing this bird left me in a great mood. 

As I moved out of the Woodland hide I would pass Ivy North again. My Mum’s husband had been in Ivy South hide when I left. The Great White Egret after I first saw it today flew and I thought to myself I bet it flies in view of one of the Ivy hides. When he caught me up in Woodland my Mum’s husband didn’t say the Great White Egret had come into his view at Ivy South when I mentioned it to him. So when passing Ivy North I knew there was a good chance I could see this bird in front of the hide like I had done before and I got in there and there it was. I managed the record shot modest as it was dark at this point and through glass in the third picture in this photoset of the famous bird named Walter the UK’s oldest Great White Egret one of Blashford’s greatest ever birds. Before leaving I took the fourth picture in this photoset of a sunset behind the trees. 

4/1/17-Portsmouth & Hill Head: Black Redstart and Snow Bunting take my year list to 75 

Today I went to Portsmouth and Hill Head (pictured in the 1st and 3rd pictures of mine today in this photoset respectively) to continue building my bird year list. I saw the species mentioned in the title of this blog and more which I will talk about below, but firstly I have to say I reached 75 birds which is my highest ever after 4 days and I am really happy and proud with this. Its actually higher than my personal record year list of 2016 after 4 days which I was amazed by and it means I’ve made another incredible start to my bird year list this year. I have seen lots of birds and some really good species every day but the species today felt like early gems and real top birds that I needed to add a bit of flair to the year list. 

So we went to Portsmouth first of all to try and see the Purple Sandpipers that are always there in the Southsea area of the city on the sea front and after not seeing them for a while a kind birdwatcher pointed them out to us. This felt brilliant as they are great birds which I have a huge respect for and they felt like a real brilliant bird to have on the year list, following one of my favourite birds the Jay and a Kestrel seen on the motorway to get me into the 70′s. 

But my Mum had also heard of a Black Redstart at Portsmouth, a bird which levelled my 2016 year list with my 2014 one on the day I beat that record in November with a Common Scoter too at funnily enough Hill Head where we went later. As we were being wowed by the Purple Sandpipers my Mum turned around and there was the Black Redstart in the grounds of Southsea Castle. It really is a distinctive and wonderful little bird and it was nice to watch it flit around for a bit, it was only my 4th ever of this species so I really wanted to savour it and I managed the record shot in the 2nd picture in this photoset. I felt this and the Purple Sandpiper were amongst the very best I’d seen this year so far. 

But we had one other bird on our mind today, the Snow Bunting which I’d only seen in Portsmouth for the 1st time in November which had been seen at Hill Head. We arrived there and headed to the beach they had been reported at where I got my 5th year tick of the day in the form of Ringed Plovers flying. We then waited for a little while with other birders and saw something sort of fly down to the beach and blend in. We scanned it and it was the Snow Bunting, which flew and hopped around a bit showing really well as I got the 4th picture in this photoset of it. They really are beautiful and special birds and I was in aw of seeing one again so soon after first seeing one and it felt like another amazing thing to really add some sparkle to my bird year list. Another kind birdwatcher showed us some Eiders, my first this year which capped off another really fantastic day of birds. 

The weird thing was today that as I mentioned the Black Redstart at Hill Head and first ever Snow Bunting at Portsmouth were such key species in the final push to get my year list to a record 181 last year, and today they have become key species to an equally as amazing start to my year list this year but with the places they were seen at reversed. So its just one of those weird things that happened and it made a brilliant day where I smiled a lot because of the birds even sweeter. I have to say so far this week off for me has been frantic with so many birds and places seen with lots of different habitats visited to get that variety of birds and I have taken lots of pictures to. So these blogs have often been quickly written up so I hope I am conveying how amazed, happy and lucky I feel to be getting a brilliant start to my bird year list again which is packed, growing well and including many amazing species.