Midlands Birding Blog

From the 5th to the 12th of September 2018, my Dad and I visited Costa Rica on a birdwatching trip, guided by Tropical Birding. With the help of Tropical Birding, we designed a new ‘Short Introtour’ – an abridged version of their popular Introtour – visiting the three main sites of La Selva, Savegre & the Mountains and Carara NP on the Pacific coast, missing out Monteverde from the classic 9 day itinerary. The trip surpassed all expectations and we saw an incredible total of 379 species in just 7 days in the country, including all of our main targets. Our guide Phil Chaon found us Snowcap, Resplendant Quetzal, Black-and-White Owl, American Pygymy Kingfisher, Violaceous Quail-Dove, Black-capped Pygmy Tyrant, Wrenthrush, King Vulture, Semiplumbeous Hawk, Three-toed & Two-toed Sloth, Fiery-Billed Aracari, Mangrove Hummingbird, Turquoise Cotinga, Coppery-Headed Emerald, Boat-Billed Heron, Turquoise-Browed Motmot, Collared Forest-Falcon and a whole host of other fantastic species.

Welcome to Midlands Birding Blog!  This blog is my birding diary as a young birder from the midlands. Here, I'll post content about birds, Midlands birdwatching, trips and more. It will be specifically about birding in Derbyshire and birding in Leicestershire, as I live on the border of these two counties. I am a keen patch birdwatcher at Willington Gravel Pits, but I love travelling further afield in search of birds, particularly day trips in the UK to Norfolk, Spurn, Frampton Marsh and lots more and when I can, birding abroad. I’ve been lucky enough to travel to Costa Rica and Spain on birding trips and to Mauritius, Iceland, Canada, USA, France and more with my family. Costa Rica was my favourite place to go bird watching and is the primary reason why my life list stands at 836.  My UK life list currently stood at 254, almost exclusively without twitching, though that being said the best bird I have seen in Britain has to be the Spurn Siberian Accentor in October 2016.  I