Friday February 25 - more pins in the map

Did I mention that I'm a bit of a nerd? Well you've probably figured that out already. This post will give you an inkling of the extent of that nerdiness.

As well as accumulating a list of the birds I see in my Circle each year, I am also attempting to record birds in every square kilometre available. So that's over 300 potential dots on the map. It doesn't stop there. I'm also doing mammals, butterflies, dragonflies, and (technically) moths. 

Birds have a non-breeding season and a breeding season, so yes I'll be covering both seasons. 

On Tuesday I parked under the M42 and completed a circuit northwards to Weatheroak Hill and back. I did this for no better reason than to fill in an annoying gap in my maps. The habitat was dire, sheep pasture, horse paddocks, hedgerows, and a small fishery. There were no highlights, unless you consider a flock of 138 Redwings, a Grey Wagtail, and a pair of Coots to be worth the effort.

Here's a sneak preview of a map. It pretty much shows everywhere I've been since the beginning of November because it shows the winter distribution (and numbers to some extent) of Robin. 

Three more years and all these squares should be blue

No doubt you're wondering where everywhere is. The map is centred on our house in east Redditch, and the gridlines are taken from the ordnance survey. Wythall in the north, Alcester in the south.

I may not actually post any more maps. There are issues regarding secrecy for breeding birds, but I reckon it will take me ten years to do everywhere properly. All my records go onto Birdtrack, or irecord depending on whether they are birds, mammals, or insects, so they'll all be recorded for posterity.

Anyone can do this, so I recommend any budding nerds out there to give it a go. It's fun.

Today I headed for Umberslade Park, a place I'd never been to before. It was much more interesting than where I went on Tuesday. Birding highlights included two Woodcock, two Teal, and a few Tufted Ducks. 

I was able to cover most of it by, broadly speaking, sticking to footpaths. However, much of the site is privately owned.

Token bird

There were no year-ticks, but that didn't matter because two more square kilometres were assigned a dot.