Day Listing

I’ve always considered myself halfway between a birdwatcher and a twitcher; I’ve never travelled long distances to see rarities but I can’t deny that buzz of seeing or even better finding one. I am a lister I suppose. I keep many different lists and always record what I see – I don’t drive across the country to see a Black-winged Pratincole but if I’m at Frampton Marsh when one is found I’ll certainly be the first in the queue to see it! I suppose you could say I twitch opportunities – I would travel a long way to visit Wells Woods during a easterly wind in the autumn but not really because there’s a Hume’s Warbler found there, rather because I want the opportunity to find the other rarity that might be lurking there! 

You would be right in saying though that I’m certainly in the group of ‘one’s to watch’ in becoming a twitcher – I could easily become someone who travels to Cornwall to see an American Robin hopping round a suburban car park. It’s for this reason that I’m always trying to come up with new lists and challenges to inspire the excitement that we all get from the somewhat unsustainable job of adding to our life list – the additions will just keep getting fewer and more difficult. 

Self-finding rarities has always been so appealing and when it happens it’s an incredible feeling. It’s something I’m always trying to get better at but the time commitment (and the times of year where it is most prolific) don’t really fit with a university timetable.

Patch listing is another great passion of mine and whenever I have free time at home, I always take the opportunity to visit Willington and add to my patch year list. Though being away for half of the year I’m never going to be competitively listing on my patch. This, while in no way discouraging from trying my best to get a big patch list, has led me to the conclusion that I need to focus my competitivenessin birding on a new area.

That’s why I love the idea of day-listing – every bird becomes important and you can put as much effort in as you want – it doesn’t reward people with a free schedule or unlimited budget. Everyone, to some extent, is equal and all that counts is what you can manage in those 24 hours. At this stage of my life, I think this is kind of perfect for what is feasible for me at the moment.

With this in mind, I’ve decided to set myself a listing challenge in 2020, which prolongs that short-lived excitement of a day list but isn’t compromised by my lack of free time or permanent address; it was actually my dad’s idea and we have decided to take it on together.

My challenge is to see as many species as I can over 5 24-hour periods in the UK in 2020. I can place these anywhere in the year as I please and carry them out in any location in the UK but combining midnight to midnight on 5 different dates I need to try and get to the highest total number of species possible. 

This adds a whole new, in my opinion quite exciting, element to the planning. When and where do you place them? Do you choose Norfolk in the winter or maybe the spring too… but if you choose both are you neglecting those tricky-to-get species in Scotland or Wales? Do you place no more than 1 day in the winter to avoid the short days… but will you then miss out on some key winter targets?

My target is 200. I’m quite sure others could do better (since 178 is the record for a single day in the UK) but being quite new at this I thought I would set myself a potentially achievable target. I'd be really interested to know what others can manage with this challenge.