My Study Area

 

This blog and the focus on it is to study the local area I live and try and find as many species as I can locally. This will be on foot from my home base in St.Austell or a short drive to any areas within the circle. I will be counting no species all year from outside the circle towards any lists I may do apart from a list I will keep at my work place.

Twitching is normally when people go and see as many rare birds as possible (sometimes mammals etc, sometimes traveling all over the country to see them. To me this is really not a great way to spend time birding but again everyone is different and I don't knock people who do and get a lot of enjoyment from it.

Patch listing, really does bring the more common species to the forefront again and gets you excited about them. The normal birder would normally dismiss a simple Goldcrest perhaps putting it on the list on January 1st then never giving them a thought again. Using this Green method is bringing the common birds to the forefront again and brings local listing back to it's purest form.

 

 

I thought about this idea a few years back when simply walking back from my local town and seeing a Mistle Thrush fly over head. This was the first one I've seen in my area EVER ! And the thrill I got was incredible and probably more excitement then I got when I went to see a Green Heron at the Lost Gardens Of Heligan. I did not enjoy twitching !

I think you actually become a better birder when you stick to a local patch and learn to identify all the common species. Once you've done that you should be able to pick any subtle differences out and find something special like a Green-winged Teal for example.

 

I'm lucky as I live about 1.5miles from the coast, which is easily walk able and really opens up my green birding. I can walk to various woods, fields, sewage works, fresh water and even re-claimed moorland. The latter proving fruitful when I discovered my first self found Dartford Warbler which turned out to be ringed. It was later found out it was the oldest ever recorded Dartford Warbler in the U.k. This again is another incredible reason why people should give local birding a chance. A Dartford Warbler just under 2 miles from my front door :) 

Hopefully you will join me on this journey and we can see how many different species I can find in the radius from home. I do wonder how many people think "how many birds am I driving by when I travel 40 miles to see a Semipalmated Sandpiper or Black Kite?".

Not only are you saving money but you may also surprise yourself and find something different and if you are lucky maybe something rare.