Why don't you turn off your mobile phone (and go and do something more local instead?) - January

> High tides: for January 1st bird races, at 10:48, so covering is around dawn for many of the south shore sites. For the drop, the hour or so after midday should see most flighting.
January '22 WeBS count is set for Sunday 23rd, towards the end of a spring cycle, so birder counts away from that date would no doubt be welcomed by Bird Track, etc. For weekend birders I'd suggest 29th-30th as worth a mid-morning visit for the least-disturbed neap tides.

> Wildfowl: The switch from mudflat to onshore feeding will be almost complete, especially as the algal growth was in poor supply going into winter this year. Goose/grass time. Brent will be in big numbers at grassland sites such as Frog farm (see below) and Chetney.

> Nocturnal behaviours: Back to those fields. At night*. If Santa got you a thermal imager for Christmas, or even if you just have an app on a mobile, worth scanning a field. By reading through some tweets it seems some birders just beginning to appreciate distribution differences between day and night.
*Carry out your own risk assessments, natch.

> Passerines: First hints of locals reclaiming breeding territories. Why some feeding stations don't get busy for the first hour or so. If checking cover crops, you may have good numbers of winter migrants in from first light, but 'our' birds a bit later to breakfast; why Reed Bunting numbers usually better in second hour of daylight. The males start to revisit territories, offer a little song, then go feed and perhaps roost communally but more often start to sleep on territory (why ringers catch more females/ young at roosts).

> 'Seawatching': January sees the start of the best period for territory-holding divers on the estuary. The theory is that diver numbers increase in the southern North Sea as birds stage before moving north from March onwards. Certainly there are more first dates for divers from the turn of the year.
When I returned in 2013, previous quarter century had shown the just-about annual Great Northern to be most common, out-ranking Black-throateds by 6:1. Daily coverage has shown Great Northerns as annual in very small numbers. Red-throateds tend not to hold territories on the Medway so, although numbering around Great Northerns, are much harder for the occasional visitor to bump into.

> Roosts: With wader numbers at their peak, worth noting satellite roosts. These are the smaller gatherings over the top of the tide that never carry much publicity (one of the elements NE struggled to identify from WeBS, etc, when first looking into the new Coast Path route).
Satellites are often very important, as may well be the safe roosting for first winter birds (Oystercatchers a prime example) or even 'local' birds. Species such as Redshank do not form one large roost. All smaller gatherings are worth recording/reporting.

Tide sites of the month

  1) A spring covering at Funton/Chetney. Always something to look at 

  2) A neap high tide at The Strand. Peak month for numbers at the estuary head. The remnants of Gillingham marshes can hold some nice neap roosts now.

  3) An ebb watching the Deep Water Channel. Calm waters on the Cant, between Sheppey north shore and the Channel can hold a few birds and as the tide retreats, waders arrive from west and east. Notoriously underwatched, often rewarding. 

My perfect January day would be..

Odd choice, this one, but I'm imagining really hard weather conditions and planning a day close to home (my perfect day after all):
 
- Morning: Dawn, Motney/Horrid Hill. Birds in the bushes.

 - Mid-day: Riverside Country Park mound. (Walking all bits east and west, returning here for the visitor centre, cafe and loo. Got to have a bit of a warm up.)

 - Late on: Bloors/Horrid, for the gulls to roost..

Top 10 tips for January:

General birding:

1) Late December as I write this, and so many 'toggers bemoaning the dreary conditions. So, when it is forecast, make the most of getting the early light behind you. Best sites? Try watching westwards from Fairmile Wharf,  Bloors Wharf, Motney and Queenborough/Rushenden.

2) Some of the best late light viewing spots are also really underappreciated. Walk out from Lower Halstow to Shoregate creek on anything barring uncovered. Or try Fairmile, or the north-east corner of Eastcourt meadows, for great views out towards Nor.

3) Kit advice. Take a chair. I use three different sizes/weights; depending on how far I intend to walk/ how long I intend to stay and watch. No hides here, all seating will be cold, or damp (or both). If going where benches, the other option is a padded garden kneeler. If you feel comfortable, you'll scan for longer.

A slide from my Medway talk.
Yes, it was cold that day, you are looking at four layers on them legs-
when sitting, wrap up warm!

4) Study the near continent's snow cover. Three days of not getting to easy feeding means biggest numbers of wildfowl making escape flights. Good time to find an odd goose.

5) Stand back. Flight Initiation Distances will be at their shortest, as weather has greatest impact on risk/reward ratios, but you still won't be tolerated as much if you go stand right on the seawall edge, especially if alone. You are a predatory threat. Two plus birders will be like cows in a herd, just prey, until they stop and stare. Don't stalk per se, just act slow and stupid, and they'll tolerate you more.

Tips for adding value:

6) Mimic BTO WeBS Core Areas. If you can count to same boundaries, then your numbers can provide great comparisons. An interactive map of WeBS Core Areas for the whole country can be found here. This month we look at two presently uncounted sectors.

Twinney  (22851) is made up by two familiar sites landward side of the seawall, Frog Farm and the Brickfields. The Frog fields are the most important part, often holding feeding Brent Geese. The reedbed in the Brickfields doesn't have enough open water to attract much, but good for a Water Rail or two, and always an enjoyable walk.

Barksore marshes (22464) are a majorly important element of the south shore. Plovers and Curlew often present in good numbers at the farmed n-ne section, the main fleet a sanctuary for wildfowl in poor weather (or when disturbed from Funton creek). The nearest pools (close to the freshwater feed of Funton creek) often hold the Greenshank roost.

The only way to view the enclosed marshes is from the viewpoint on the Saxon Shore Way due south of the old brickworks. A brilliant spot, but best not to leave vehicles unattended (walk from Lower Halstow).

Strangely, this WeBS core sector still includes the south-western dogleg element of Stangate creek (the saltings viewable from Chetney) and the vast majority of Halstow creek (viewed easily from the Brickfields). Historical leftover from when birders last walked the area to count, decades ago? Whatever the reason, any supplemental counts of any part of 22464 would be of great value. 


BTO WeBS Alerts are issued for those species for which a site was nationally/internationally important at the time it became protected (the 'designated features'). Of our 15 designated SSSI features here, as at end 2021 10 had High Alerts issued, 2 Medium Alerts. All counts for any of these species can prove useful data. Check their excellent interactive webpage out for full details, species accounts and graphs.

7) Make your Shelduck count:

SSSI: High alert (for long term trend)
Short-term (5 years) +33% / Medium term (10 years) +35%  / Long term (25 years) -51%

Better coverage in the past decade is perhaps behind the short/medium term improvements. Annual peak WeBS nos are found in December, which ties in fairly well to a national WeBS peak in January; many birds make their way back into the UK from their Waddenzee moult sites through the south-east then filter on towards their breeding grounds. Bearing in mind there is turnover through the south-east right now, it could be the once-a-month WeBS snapshot will not pick up the peak- any counts at this time of year would be welcomed.

8) Make your Shoveler count:

SSSI: Medium alert (for medium term trend)
Short-term (5 years) +4% / Medium term (10 years) -29%  / Long term (25 years) +24%

Nationally important counts are anything over 190 and Shoveler wobbles around this level. With WeBS counts being uncoordinated, it is possible to miss significant numbers (the birds that loaf at Bloors may hide up on Rainham saltings, or may switch to Nor, where potentially missed by the boat counters. Birds Funton creek/Bedlams often flip over the walls to Barksore (uncounted)/ Chetney.

Just two examples where simply taking monthly peaks from each of these areas make for overcounts, but where if a very low WeBS count for the interconnected sites extremely low, probably worth using the largest supplemental count for the sector. Why all counts welcomed, but where sectors appreciated (not, say, just counted as 'Riverside Country Park').  

9) Count a 'non-bird': Red-breasted Merganser (SPA):

'Non-featured species' on WeBS Alerts are those for which we do not hold internationally/ nationally important numbers, but for which trends can still be monitored and black= bad - in this case, black over all three terms:

Short-term (5 years) -77% / Medium term (10 years) -79% / Long term (25 years) -96%

The biggest problem here is the birds favour creeks out and around the islands, but don't like the counters' rib that much. When birds are disturbed, they will turn up closer to shore, but with shore/boat counts being uncoordinated, easy to miss.

In the mid-nineties we had counts of 20s, 30s, 40s. We have nowhere near that number now, but double figures are routine, whereas two of the last five WeBS seasons returned zeros (the three other winters showing just 2, 2 and 6). Why all supplemental counts could be of great use. 

10) And this month's whacky suggestion is:

Make a deliberate point of dropping in to the Riverside Country Park visitor centre to say 'hi'.

There is a legal definition of a Country Park, essentially to provide for recreational activity in a countryside setting. This means they are not necessarily a nature reserve, although they are often found within/alongside legally designated sites.

The site has to provide for all user groups, but the current Ranger team (with full support of their employers, Medway Norse Ltd) are keen to understand/improve the countryside element through more environmental monitoring within the Park boundaries and are there is also a desire to achieve Local Nature Reserve status for Riverside.

Back in October I was lucky enough to be invited to give the team a talk on the birds of the Medway, and how they can help visiting birders to get the best experiences. The team have now started looking at their own specific avian monitoring schemes to supplement to existing national surveys and, using the knowledge of their lifelong birder in the ranks, develop team identification skills. The team really should be applauded for self-starting these efforts.

And they're looking to provide a better experience within the Visitor Centre for all levels of birdwatcher. Early days, but there is now a birdwatching information board in the main window, with all the usual, the tide times, Bird Wise Codes of Conduct, etc. plus info they feel covers the questions they get from visiting birdwatchers of all abilities. They have a map up of Park boundaries as well as we birders are prone to extending the boundaries of the RCP (latest example I've seen had a site said to be RCP some 2km further on along the seawall). 

They plan to redesign the Sightings Board in the next few weeks as well, based on their interactions with visitors. This is just inside the centre (but can be seen through the door outside of official opening hours) and they do welcome reports. So, if you want the team there to know how you use their facilities, never a better time to feedback than this month.

(P.S. And if you do ever find anything good, please do follow the Birdwatchers' Code of Conduct and let them know; some staff are only just setting out on their birding adventures and you providing them with exact location, etc., even a little on the species' jizz/status, will help them provide a better experience for any twitching the bird who call in expecting detailed directions.)

Hot off the press for January 2022:

Avian flu is a concern in the UK this winter, and up-to-date control zones can be found via an interactive map here. A sniff of a concern here in the Christmas period have been reports from local bait diggers of a trio of Little Egret tideline corpses. For whatever their reasons, the corpses were taken ("I've kept the legs at home"), so I'm now keeping the DEFRA hotline for reporting corpses in my notebook to pass on to any of the public who mention seeing one: 03459 33 55 77. (Full public advice regarding wild birds here).

For those who keep score, this month's potential:

(Since moving back in 2013, checks at the end of each year have shown annual totals in the 180s, 190s. That's helped by my birding daily here, but a north Kent 200 should be on for someone willing to chase it. This might help incentivise.)

January? 90 species for the month should be an achievable target.

If you, like me, would sneakily include the Medway Deep Water Channel extension out past Sheerness, a watch off of Grain or Sheerness/ Minster will have you over 100.

And finally, something for the listers: what's Medway missing?

This month's top three dreams/nightmares:

  1) Okay. I wrote about Black-throated Divers earlier, so I'm playing word/bird association - Black-throated Thrush. So few decent passerines get seen here, yet we still have potential. The apple orchards are full of windfall and fruit left on the branch. January is always a big month for orchard feeding. Yet on my transits since 2013, I've seen as many birders on the orchard footpaths as I've seen Black-throated thrushes..

  2) Alright, let's choose a 'proper' marsh bird, and going for this simply because of goose/ green mentioned earlier - Lesser white-fronted Goose. Daft considering how few White-fronts we get? Well, bear in mind the east Sheppey birds can and do turn up at Elmley, from where a short flight to the Medway. White-fronts here often go under-reported because they get flushed from their favourite feeding areas on the game farms/ shoots, and there is a lack of birders out looking. Chances are you'll get to be White-front King '21-'22 if you do try.

  3) One for the garden watchers as the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch is coming (29th- 31st). Continental Great Tit.  'Only a race' do I hear? 'You won't get it past the county rares, these things are clinal'. Okay, a gap we might never fill on the Medway list. But the fun here is to help look hard at the feeders. I picked up on a good candidate one January, when living just outside Rye. I would have 'ticked' it, but had made the mistake of putting up a shedload of nestboxes on the surrounding farmland and the dang thing went and bred in one. Paler birds can and do occur in our own population in the south-east. So, if you do turn one up, get a photo for the County Recorder but also smash all nest-boxes within a half-mile radius so it has to bugger off come spring and you might, just might, get a glimmer of a hope of a chance of acceptance.

All three suggestions just a bit of fun; if you do turn something up, well done; if not, you'll have had a hoot trying.

That's it for January. Time to get out there and look...

Kev's Christmas Bird Count: Day Seven - some left-overs (and some Christmas scraps)

My garden is rubbish. It's a yard. It did attract birds once, when there were orchards over the road, but th ey're a building site at the moment. In some 38 years of calling it my backyard, 2021 is the first year I've not seen a Blue Tit land in it.

Landing is key for RSPB's big garden birdwatch. 2 rules. (1) Count is exactly an hour. (2) Count everything that lands. RSPB gurus will do the rest, adjust your species tallies based on how many times the same Blue Tit visits the same garden in a 60 minute period and work out the national result.

Over the pond? They don't want you counting the same bird twice. So, you record the maximum present at any one time. And you can sit watching as long as you like. You just have to record exactly how long and tell them that as well.

45 minutes gone and nothing but Sparrows. Peak 12. Landed 43. I might just close my eyes for five minutes, then do a final 15. No harm in that.

Just five minutes. Just fi.. zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Nooooo! We really can't do circles. Nooooo! The Hoo crew would hate it. They'd want the whole peninsula in, so would centre it on Northward Hill. That way they'd get the off-Peninsula bits of the Medway towns they've always claimed because someone once lived close-by, but not quite on, the geographic peninsula.

Nooooo! They'd get parts of Essex as well, but they've never really bothered chatting much with them. Okay, there was a collaborator once at Cliffe who swapped messages with East Tilbury, but they put a stop to that. (I wonder if they've ever realised the real reasons behind Essex surveyors working parts of Hoo in recent years, finding all the goodies. Come the revolution..

Ohh, and what if the South Swale gang wanted all their patches in their circle? If they based it on Oare, they'd have all the juiciest bits of Sheppey too. They wouldn't want Sheerness, no birds there. They could leave it out. Heck all that'd be left of my Medway circle would become the perineum, separating the..

Wake up Kev(!) You're having a nightmare(!)

Phew, just a dream. Of course. All silly stuff. That'd never happen in America, would it?

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Want to see our map of New York circles looking just like this north Kent nightmare? You just have to read up on the The Queens / Brooklyn / south Nassau / Lower Hudson Turf Wars.
Sure, a bit tongue-in-cheek - but they based the Godfather movies on these wars. Bigly Fact. 

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We Brits are so lucky. The proud institution that is the Ordnance Survey gave us our beautiful standardised maps and we are used to squares; 1 km squares, 2 x 2 km squares (tetrads), 10 km squares. We've built our surveying around such things. Sure, things like Birdtrack now allow you to draw your own oddly shaped recording areas, they've probably got a stats wizard of Gandalf level skills locked in the Nunnery who sorts things out regarding number crunching, but we've got squares. No arguments now.

Squares and County lines? Ah, well, yes, 10 kms could be trouble but much of the standardised surveying for the BTO Atlas were at tetrad level of course, with peace treaties negotiated by allocating each to a county controller based on "pragmatic reasons". We Brits are so reasonable. (Yeah, right, just listen to the rumblings from Kent (by Vice-county or postal address ) birders living within the London Bird Recording area. Especially when a Kent (Kent Recording area) goes on to tell 'em they're not in Kent.

I might just try something square-shaped next Christmas.

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That's it. The seven days are up. I haven't really gone into the results in any detail. That wasn't the point of these blogs. I slowly reduced the birding narrative as well, not the real point. This has been about ponderings the differences, working out why we don't never had a CBC here, wondering if any elements are worth borrowing.

I do think they've got one really big jump on us. Fun. The team element (turf wars aside) had both competitiveness and camaraderie from the start, and now with added science. Data analysis was bolted on after the games started, the fun was already to the fore.

We Brits might believe we have many more surveys going on that a CBC event isn't needed. But we as individuals often let our British reserve get in the way of taking part (and sometimes, sad to say, some in our British Birding Class system still like to not let some join the club. Standards, don't cha know).

But our friends over the pond don't care. They mix it up and go have fun together.

There's an entry-level advertising rule that says "Sell the sizzle, not the sausage." If someone's never had a sausage before, and you try to convince them it's great by waving an uncooked one at them, they really won't bite. But sell 'em the sizzle, let them smell the cooking, see the juices, offer a taster.. Mmmmmmmmm sausage.

If a county wants to avoid a couple of extra years of Atlas fieldwork by having enough surveyors from the start, if a WeBS manager want a fit team squad with substitutes available for sickness/hols, you really do have to show birders these things are fun!

The clock is probably ticking for that next national Atlas. Here on the Medway, the alarm has been ringing for WeBS. No better time to try getting birders together (if only Covid will bugger off!!)

Enjoy your Christmas birding, however you do it. (And go Manatees!!)

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"Mmmmmmmmm Sausage Roller"

Kev's Christmas Bird Count: Day Six - More mopping up (and the Christmas No #1 record)

Oh lawsey, a frost. I finally put the fire on for first time this winter, a quick warm before heading out to try for some more passerines uber-locally. And an outside shot at Pochard and Tuftie. Both had been disturbed from their favourite spots by shoots this past weekend, and it usually takes a few days for them to try returning. They're happy in winter gatherings, but some local breeders are already about reclaiming territory, indulging in a little early morning exchanges at their display pools. All half-hearted at mo', why no quick return after flushing- but give it another month.

Trouble now was their pools near here only need a couple of nights of cold nights to freeze over completely. Today, or not going to score close to home. And it wasn't to be today.

Passerine numbers in the cover crops had shot up again (pun intended). Big increase in Reed Buntings. The estuary edge must be becoming hard work. But no joy with any newbies.

Did I care? Not in the slightest. I'm playing, I'm not even competing against myself. Part of how I settled to local birding was dropping personal lists. I've got a few CWs and the hard work is done. I'd drawn a blank and had a brilliant time.

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Some CBC big figs:
Christmas 2012: 71,531 participants. 2,369 locations.
Christmas 2005: record 250 species counted in the Mad Island Marsh count circle, Texas.
Christmas 2015: international record 431 species counted in the Cosanga-Narupa count circle, Ecuador.

(Pfffft. In Blighty this year’s Big Garden Birdwatch was the biggest ever; in January over a million people took part in counting more than 17 million birds. We've got this.)

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We've got this. Have we?

If we can get that number of people counting garden birds, why can't we get all our WeBS sectors covered?

In my Bible, Colwell's Shorebird ecology, conservation and management, the author reviews the effectiveness of monitoring programs. CBC is in there- as well as giving several examples of where the CBC has provided some useable data for a few species, he concludes 'despite its shortcomings, CBC data are useful in understanding range shifts, especially given (its) century-long history'.

Of more interest, his comment on programs in general: 'Most of these programs have relied heavily on the cooperation of volunteers to collect data; consequently, they have traded off quality in their survey methods for willing volunteers.'

Oof. Roughly translated, they've pared down the methodology to the bare bones, and they really do need volunteers to RTFM.

He does, however continue to explain the statistical sorcery of double-sampling is helping; Essentially run a first analysis, spot anomalies, run a second analysis. Sorcery becomes necromancy when the initial data is poor, however. You're running a dead horse.

Back to vol numbers.
Why do they drop away so much from the simple surveys to the more complex?
From the team to the individual efforts?
From the fun to the serious?

Covering that is a series of posts in itself. But if those counties who have trouble getting national atlas surveys covered within original timescales want to think about getting more 'troops' in the field for the next effort, then could they try something between now and then to encourage more to be involved, to get more individuals working as teams, to see how counting can be fun?

Could something modelled on the CBC team game be the spark for some?

Final day of the count week tomorrow. I've tried most elements, I had a sort of go at one at lunchtime on my allotment, which I think I'm going to try properly tomorrow. That Blighty Garden Bird watch? Well, CBCs have a specific feeder watch element. Let's give that a go..

Kev's Christmas Bird Count: Day Five - Re: Cant (and mopping up afterwards)

Dagnabbit. A Christmas Bird Count week near Christmas is a pain. Christmas gets in the way. Christmas food shopping to be precise. Unless you want to go at night when half the stock is probably sitting in cages in the delivery bay.

Grit teeth, Hempstead Valley Shopping Centre here we come. After checking in with the council's roving Rangers responsible for our small clumps and patches and, yes, the remnants of the great Hempstead wood near the centre had some mop ups available. Park up, walk ten minutes, bag the CWs, go fight the crowds, home, unpack, write a thank you note to Ranger Mark, sorry, to Santa, saying 'Thank you for my Nuthatch and Treecreeper..'.

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(Google search 'Count Week Results' to pick one at random and, oooo, yes, I like manatees -
Manatee County Audubon. Bradenton Circle. 

"Sixty-one men and women participated in the Bradenton Circle Christmas Bird Count as part of the 121st National Audubon Society annual birding survey.."
(Men and women. Not out and out birders. All levels. All playing. 61 for a circle. Imagine getting 61 birders to agree to thrash the north Kent marshes..)

"Teams tallied 158 species and 52,836 individual birds.."
(The team score isn't the focus. Yes, you can compete intra-circle, but the uber-team result is the important one..)

"An additional five species were recorded during the count week, which was three days prior and following (Count Day).."
(Five! Just five?? Wowsa. Of course, my mock CBC had just one team of one out in the field (team name 'The Dense Thicket') which made the rest of the week vital for a high score. If I went mental I could get another 45, 50. If I pretended I wasn't a Billy-no-mates by stealing any Circle sightings for my CW from the various Social Media sources, I'd get a couple of dozen of those to evidence fun that could be had, but 5. Respect to those 61 Manatees. They'd done their prep properly and thrashed that circle on Race Day.)

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This reearch knocked some of the wind out of my sails. Witnessing some high levels of disturbance on Count Day itself had also left me with little motivation to go mad for it on the three mop up days. Today's mop up wasn't going to be a race in any way. It was going to be a stroll over on Sheppey. Somewhere I liked.  And if it only got me a couple of additionals, so be it. Had three days to score five like my new heroes, the Bradenton Circle crew, that'll do. (That was their 2020 report in the link above, you bet I'll be checking back in the New Year to see how they do: Go Go Bradenton!) 

I'd mentioned Minster in my 'What to do in November' post, when talking about Great Crested Grebes. ("And there can be good numbers off of Sheerness-Minster in the slack between the DWC and shore - this area is not covered by any WeBS count at present.") And a non-birding chum was going to Queenborough and Minster this afternoon. Lift time.

I got dropped off (and would be picked up) from the Seathorpe Avenue car park. My chum knows me well. If I'm watching Medway's Deep Water Channel I'll be closer but down at sea level- around Barton's Point. If it's a skua day (before you get excited, yes, it can be better than Grain but nowhere near as good as Shellness), I'll go a little further east to Minster Leas for a bit of height and a few close-ins, but for a decent scan of the distant waters/flats between the DWC and shore, the Cant, I'll go for extra height. The car park is only up at around the 35 metre mark, but makes the difference.

The Deep Water Channel has a flow that influences moving birds, especially those heading into the Medway itself. But these waters are Thames- the tidal flow is east to west. I tend to think of the Cant's shallow waters as a bit of a sheltered haven between the deep water flows and land. Why the Grebes like it. But the northern edge has big shell beds. Today the 'Bay Daniel', a local fishing boat I know well from my Queenborough visits, was out trawling over the area. There should be birds out there, and there are.

But birders often don't bother. Distances (and easier honeypots nearby). I'll admit it, I always enjoyed it here, but it has got better since I upgraded from a fixed wide angle x30 to a zoom to x70. Speck-tacular results. I only went that high because I do spend so much time on distant scanning on the Medway. And I'm never disappointed if I don't get crippling views.

Looking straight out, the view is north-east, so the distant buoys are some four miles off at the very start of the Medway DWC. Four miles is scary to most. But as the BTO say, from a clear viewpoint experienced WeBS counters can do common flocks at four miles. And rafts of Common Scoter were out there today. They're hit and miss, but the Grebes are regular, and many are usually only up to a mile offshore, usually in rafts of up to around 40. The challenge is digging out a different one, but today there was a Slav just east of the car park. That'll do.

Between the grebes and the scoter you'll pick up on flighting divers. Not everyone's cup of tea, but finding birds on the water a tad harder as they're usually prone to being more spread out, and individuals are easily missed if you don't scan carefully and slowly. Among the expected Red-throats, a single Black-throat loafing close enough in for the x70. This wasn't the expected bird, Great Northerns are usually second commonest. No complaints from me.

I got a trio of CW birds (a Kittiwake sailed by the Daniel Boy) in an hour. It was a relaxed birding hour, no racing. That's how a mop-up trip should be. Pleasurable.

I'd thought hard about making some more distant trips to thrash the circle. I'd never achieve it, and now I was thinking I didn't want to. It has to be a team effort. 60 more birders needed for an enjoyable race and chase.

When do we Brits ever mop up? The most famous, most important mop up was after the Bird Atlas 2007-11. The introductory chapters explain all the hard work that went into organising the effort. The BTO costs the total work involved at 1.5 million pounds. Some of that went on data capture and engagement and problems encountered and lessons learnt are laid out (3.9, p.62) The program had to be adapted to by way of an extended Roving Record submission module (and data manipulation magic worked to match for all areas) because 30 counties and regional bird clubs continued fieldwork for their tetrad atlases by one to two years "taking advantage of the momentum in observer effort".

Well, some of the counties whose minutes were public at the time spun it another way; effort was needed to cover some big gaps and small nos of birders acted as hit teams. What if that momentum had come earlier?

The 2nd national Atlas was '88-'91. This was 20 years on. If the aspiration is to repeat 20 years on again, then some time to go. Or is there? The Atlas also says first initial planning meetings took place in 2001. Exactly 20 years ago.

How can we get more momentum earlier? Surely those 30 clubs would like to achieve results in time? Could perhaps a few county CBCs in the next few years give more birders a taste of fun both racing and then chasing missing birds? We often list January 1st, and see county write-ups that muse over the missing. A game week late December, that goes for it, that celebrates the end of the year? (That gets a heck of a lot of scouting done for our better-loved January 1st year-list racing starts?

We've never gone in for CBCs. But could we get pay-offs from squaring the circle? (And I'm thinking 10km squares here..)

There's other positives that I'll muse on tomorrow whilst out in the field..

Kev's Christmas Bird Count: Day four - COUNT DAY (and thoughts for the poor ol' compiler)

My mantra, chanted throughout Count Day, was 'Everything in proportion'. This was not really a bird race. Sure, look through many of the blogs by birding chums over the pond and it reads like one. Not just competitive, there's more of a fun element to this.

But what had become clear during the research was how hard the Circle compiler has to work to marshal troops to cover all the right areas. The Count is about reflecting the true picture. If a species inhabits your circle in big numbers, you want to show that in the end results. Make sure there are enough teams out covering that habitat they like. The compiler might put the twitchiest counters together for the route that gives the highest species score but they'll get the wader specialists out on a route that keeps them close by the flats. Have a huge gull roost? Make sure your specialist is out to count that, and tell every other team not to bother counting Black-heads. That roost count is going in the final tally.

So, my one man play at the game saw me choosing not to try to draw up a route that took in every species possible. I played myself in my best position, on the estuary. At the same time though, I knew I couldn't cover both basins properly in a day, so I stuck myself in the western- much better mixes in the shoreline habitats. That might get a respectable species tally, and a respectable, proportionate count.

Bit of owling pre-dawn, then fields adjacent flats at dawn (wildfowl feeding), tide out so a mini-passer bash through orchards and copses then a lot of time on the waders from the covering to high. With the tide not uncovering until dusk, aim to end where you can view the gulls and check passerine roosts. Then a bit of owling on the way home.

(So, for the locals, that's a daylight walk of Ham Green, Windmill Hill, Otterham, Berengrave, Bloors, Horrid, Rainham Docks East.)

If this was a real CBC, there'd be a team starting in the woods on the Downs. Another out at the estuary mouth. Another on the Hoo ridge.. (another game for the locals, imagine where would you place your troops?). And you'll have a few garden watchers ready to provide their peak counts.

I could spend a bit of time narrating the day now, but not really the purpose of the week. You've all read accounts of Bird Races. Blah blah, great start, blah blah, late to Site 'X', blah blah, not everyone got on it, blah blah, hit the wall after lunch, blah blah, how did we miss Jay all day? Just fill in the gaps for your own site. How would you work it to get the proportions right?

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The role of the CBC compiler.

- Organise/recruit enough participants, old and new, including feeder-watchers.
(So, just like getting enough WeBS counters, or BBS surveyors? We all know how easy that is!)

- Provide CBC volunteers with instructions.
(Because we all know us Brits bother to RTFM)

- Schedule the count.
(Find the best date. Not just for you.)

- Sort teams.
(Go for balance, then. Keen local patcher, upbeat player, someone who shouldn't be allowed out in public but knows the wing formulae for every migrant Sibe passerine, and the complete newbie along for the experience who'll bring way too much food for one person. Or just stick the two loudest Facebookers together for the day and see if they kill each other.)

- Sort routes.
(No crossing of rotes. Not everyone gets to go to the honeypot. In an ideal world some of the best birders will volunteer to hit the hardest spots- thrash ground for the specialists. In the real world they'll all want the sweetest of spots 'cos no-one can cover it as well as them. Compiling is best suited to those with diplomatic experience.)

- Sort routes (big wink).
(Ah, this is what you call 'poaching', right? Routes are short enough to be covered with time to spare, and you encourage teams to sneak onto a neighbour's route where there's known to be a hard to find species. If the team get it, and the poachers get, fine. If the race team dips, but the poachers sneak in and get it, they get the glory and the species is on the Count Day list. Wow. You might play like that, but Brit dippers have been known to commit murder for less..)

- Publicise.
(Media whore time. Before race for counters, post-race to promote. A short paragraph in the Crusty Gammon Birders newsletter is not acceptable publicity.)

- Get the results in.
(Number crunching time.)

- And repeat.
(Christmas Bird Count Compiling is for life, not just for Christmas.)

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So glad the sun goes down before four. Brilliant day, but tiring. By four-forty the world had grown quiet and it was just a twenty-minute walk home to chill out and make sense of all the numbers and deciphering scrawl pretending to be BTO 2 letter bird names. Another reason I was glad this circle had just me playing, misery that I am - no evening log call.

Many compliers have the thankless task of putting on the evening get-together. Finding a venue big enough for all the teams to meet, have a bite to eat and a drink or two and put the results together. Camaraderie and rivalry together. Which team got the most birds? Which team got the most species? The rarest? The grand total? As big a part of the day as the birding itself for many it seems.

I pushed save. My excel spreadsheet was done and dusted.  21,289 birds of 92 species logged. That sounded proportionate. I could bore you with those details, but that's not really why I've played this game this week. The real reason I played the game will become clear over the next three days/posts as I get on with filling in some 'CW' gaps.

Kev's Christmas Bird Count: Day Three - final prep (and the necessary health and safety announcements)

Up at dawn, open the curtains and, yup, fog again. Bugger.

Well, many of the various local CBC guides to be found on the internet explain that scouting days are neither compulsory nor necessary, and this was a scouting day. The last. Over the pond a good circle compiler will make sure there's always a 'local' on each team. There shouldn't be much I don't know about the south Medway by now, my tenth winter birding it nigh daily. As DIMW always said, you can't really know your local patch until you've worked it for at least seven years; that way you get to experience all sorts of conditions.

And yet I still bunk off when inclement. I'll often do the same for fog. I can afford to be a fair weather birder. But this week is all about the CBC so I really should do something this morning. Bugger.

Okay, there's a covering tide a couple of hours after dawn, the last of a run of neaps. So, a good chance of waders overnight roosting close to south shore feeding and just enough daylight to fill bellies (they scoff then rest up to digest) before the covering. They really should be loafing by their favourite spots. Won't work for wildfowl today, too many onshore shoots operating yesterday and always takes a few tides to resume preferred feeding patterns. But individual, territorial waders could be checked out. Spotted Redshanks, Greenshanks, Green and Common Sands. Quick checks. Sounds like a plan. That relies on sound.

Foggy flats are often silent. No need to call, not seeing much to get alarmed at. Took some time, but the time wasn't wasted, as my back was to the reed bed and a couple of other must-gets were confirmed on call. 

That was about as much as I could hope for in these conditions. Besides, mustn't overdo it the day before the Count.

Go easy, keep safe.

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Typical CBC Safety Guidelines (based on our Canadian CBC chums' guidebook)

- A Christmas Bird Count should be fun and enjoyable, but safety always come first.
(This is Blighty. We're not going to have snowdrifts, wolves and murderers in log cabins- the things that'd make a day fun and enjoyable. I'm ready to face the mizzle.)

- Conducting your CBC in a safe manner is your responsibility, and if have concerns about your safety, do not survey.
(Didn't the BTO once say to ringers 'the buck stops with you'? Common sense people. Let's be careful out there. And watch out for Covidiots.)

 -  Bring a charged cell phone
(What the heck is a cell phone? This Luddite still shouts and waves.)

- Tell a friend or relative where you are going and when you will return.
(One flaw. All too often when a birder says they're popping to their local patch and will be back for dinner, they end up chasing off over six county lines and get be back for dawn if lucky.. No-one ever believes a birders' hometime promise)

- Bring a first aid kit.
(Translates to drink a Lemsip before you leave and pack a spare tissue.)

- Bring more food and water than you think you will need.
(I've already stashed my emergency cache. Stockpiled choccie and crisps are at the halfway point on my allotment.)

Bring a partner!
(What? Break the habit of the past decade? I'm happiest arguing with myself nowadays.)

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Afternoon saw the start of the pre-race rituals. Laying out the layers. Filling the gadget bag. Setting the tally counters to zero. Two notebooks, two pens. Two headtorches as well. A ninety minute nap, with another planned for ten-ish tonight. Wellies in from the porch for a bit of a warm (pair of waders already at the allotment for the badly flooded paths in the gravel pit).

And of course, my tally counters. Two sets of pairs on lanyards. I'm so sad I usually count five species at once, four listed alphabetically left to right on the tally counters, fifth by memory, with maybe an odd fellow traveller or two remembered as well. Sounds mad, but it's the way I've been doing it for ten years now.

But more on counting methodologies in tomorrow's post. Right now, it's time to stop proof-reading this, finish my coffee, get out the door and start 'owling'.

Midnight. It's time. I'm out for the count.

Kev's Christmas Bird Count: Day Two - gull frightlines (and yet more background policies)

Threw back the curtains and the forecast fog had failed to materialise. Morning spent checking off-path nooks and crannies for edge of the marsh stuff. The sort of spot you'd rush by on a normal day, say, the official dog walking field on the edge of the Country Park, full of noise and smells and potentially dangerous allergy reactants, but which also has a straggly patch of alders (Siskin; 2).

Guilt sets in. You're not really counting much now, and could you be missing out on a bigger count back on the seawall? Surely that's where you should be? And think of the Knot. They're only just starting to move into the western basin and that covering tide is due. Might be the only chance of a two-figure, three figure count on Monday's big count..

CBC thinking is a little different to Bird Race thinking. Back to the wall, Lesser Redpoll can wait a bit, that mist could roll in any minute..

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Should we be more like this- our chums over the pond use 'policies' rather than having rules. Knowing how much we Brits hate rules (and codes) perhaps a good policy would be to use policies next time?

Anyhoo, after yesterday's viewing problems, what can you do on a CBC to make up for thick fog?

The policy on using attractant noises. As CBC is about numbers in the non-breeding season, playback and attractant noises (pishing and squeaking) are allowed "where allowed by law". The use of playback on a CBC should be very judicious, never in a way that could affect the birds' behaviour in a significant way.

The policy on trail cams, remote/unmanned audio recorders, and live stream feeder cameras. Not allowed. Species detected by trail cam photos or other remote sensing can be listed as “cw” (count week) species if they were recorded in count week.  But they cannot be included on the Census Day itself.

(I'm so glad we didn't start this 120 years ago. We'd have Blightymas bird Count purists insisting no Swaro' scopes, just 2x magnification Opera glasses.. No idea what they think of thermal imaging cameras either.)

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The afternoon, after checking through the waders on the uncovering, was spent looking through the loafing gulls. For the Count Day, planning on picking up numbers in the hour around sunset as, even if I end up deep in the quarry, the southern shore is peppered with gull flightlines as thousands return to roost after a day feeding inland to the Downs.

Today the mist was coming in. Bugger, bugger, bugger. Sure, that would mean some of the gulls coming back really low, often eye level along the likes of the narrow Otterham creek, but the spectacle won't happen, the numbers will be missed.

Anyone who has done a BTO winter gull survey knows the whole event is like a Star Wars dogfight. "They're coming in too fast.. there's too many of them.. lookout! they're behind you.. arrrgh" that the official count instructions move you into the realm of estimates. And, to many, that's even scarier.

Not just size and scale. We get worried about the fellow traveller. The oddity wrapped up in the mass. I think of it in a way that dismisses that traveller completely. I use a wader analogy when trying to explain to potential counters they really only need to concentrate on the common stuff. A WeBS count isn't a bird race. In a bird race, the rare wader scores exactly the same as the thousands of Dunlin they're wrapped in. A WeBS count, a gull survey, a CBC, they have a more formal purpose attached. WeBS provides the evidence as to whether we're meeting our international commitments or not. Are we looking after the officially recognised internationally important numbers we have here. Yet we get hung up on whether there's one Great Knot in the 5,000 not-so-great Knots and what if we miss it..

It really doesn't matter if you miss the Great Knot.

(Heresy!!)

The important result is a number of the Knot. Just like you don't get hung up on if it's 4,975 or 5,025, at this scale an estimate is fine, miscounting/misidentifying that Great in the sum of all things doesn't matter. It's the trend in overall numbers for the important species we're after.

You can get hung up on rares any other day. On this day, their rarity value has fallen.

Often when trying to sell surveys to people you'll find a 'But what if I can't identify an X among the flocks' is their way of saying 'not for me', but just now and then you'll pick up it's a buy-in, an objection that can be overcome. Reassurance is what's needed.

No-one comes into this world kicking and screaming with a Collins field guide in hand and an inbuilt knowledge of greater coverts, tertial lengths and toe palmations,

So, gull flightlines. Get those estimations. You will miss a handful of Med gulls among the Black-heads, but the percentage scale makes it a minimal loss. Trust me, those few Meds won't make up for the Black-heads coming in too high. The trend, the estimate, are important today. You can go back to worrying about the lone Bonaparte's tomorrow. Then his rarity value will be on the rise.

Of course, human nature being what it is, you're going to want one Med gull at least. Here on the Medway most will say December Meds are rare. Well, they're certainly inland feeding for much of the time birders are about, but come the last hour of the day early loafing Black-heads start to assemble along the shore. Not many of us stop to scan through them but, when you do, you'll find a small number of Meds. Today the ratio of BHs to MUs in the loafers during that last hour was about 180 to one, so you do have to work at them. You can get a handful if you try, and from now on through into spring, that number will slowly grow.

How many do you miss on the flightlines? Who knows? But there'll be small numbers from inland, and a slightly larger number from Sheppey's north shore that roost here. But the point of the winter gull survey is the scale of those large numbers.

This is what I'm liking about feel of the CBC. A large part of it is designed to be fun. The game is there to be played, with the win-win bonus of useable data. Why so very many do play CBC, year after year I guess - "Surveys! But now with extra added fun!!"

I was cold, I was damp, I was stuck with limited visibility for the last hour of the day. The stats would say I'd had nearly a dozen Meds. But I'd actually had was fun.

Tomorrow? Day three of Count Week, the day before Count Day. I think I'll call it Count Day Eve. The excitement is building more I had imagined..

My other team member, 'Winter George'. Always joins me for a seawatch off Horrid Hill.

Kev's Christmas Bird Count: Day One 'highlights' (and a bit more background)

Day One of Kev's Christmas Bird Count!
A Woo and a Hoo!
Up before dawn, dressed and ready to go, open the curtains and... fog.

Oh bugger.

Normally I'd just say 'back to bed'. Having the opportunity to go birding every day really doesn't mean you have to. Weekend birders, yup, they have to. Not me. And fog does my head in, especially when there's also continual mizzle.

I loathe getting my glasses wet. I've worn glasses since a schoolboy, and have a really duff left eye (the County Recorder knows this and wouldn't ever accept even a common sp. record from me said to be flying flying stage left to stage right) and all the faffing about to keep specs and bins dry wears me down.

Throughout just over a decade's worth of being paid to ring you'd be seeing me pray for rain to get a lay in every few weeks. The rule of thumb for staff and visiting ringers get up, look out, if raining, reset alarm for an hour later and then check again. Some days an extra hour, some days many. Only the maddest of birder-ringers got dressed, got out and got soaked. Real ringers slept in.

Bugger.
This was Day One of my CBC week. Could I force myself to do something? Anything?

Half-an-hour later I'm squinting at cover crops. I'm scouting for Brambling. All rather forlorn, usual Bramblefink tactics here are move in in late autumn and stay off for refuelling only but just long enough to con birders into thinking settled. Then switch to preferred feeding. There's no beech woods on this shore. Yes, as the mast runs low, then more wander in late winter and numbers might build a little again, but last few checks on favoured local roost had only produced the odd bird, and not sure I want to be there at dusk on Count Day, so time to see if I could kick one out along the route.

Not a sniff.

Down to the riverside, and I'm up to my ankles in Chaffinch and Goldfinch on the old brownfield Bloors Wharf. Weeds aplenty close to main local roost on a foggy day? That'll do. Brambling? Nope.


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What is the Christmas Bird Count? 

Christmas Day, 1900, Frank Chapman and 26 other birdwatchers carried out the first Christmas Bird Count (CBC). It has gone on to become the winter bird census for the USA and Canada (and many other western hemisphere countries through central and south America). it represents some 120 years of citizen science, and is coordinated by the National Audubon Society.

(Chapman is also credited with first promoting photography in birding. We'll forgive him that.) 

Unlike our British bird races, it is not a simple tick list. All birds are counted, all day. Taking part is free. All levels welcome. The circle compiler helps put together teams of all abilities. If you live in the circle, you can stay at home and watch your feeders.

(You can also watch your feeders in February, by taking part in the Great Backyard Bird Count. That started in 1998, some nineteen years after the RSPB/Blue Peter got the Blighty garden birdwatch. Answering why has one crossed the pond, but not the other, is part of the reason for my bit of silliness this week.)

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Lunch was back at home drying out. The tide had been and gone, and there was nothing I needed to check in on so it was down to the allotment to fill the feeders. They're hanging up on the boundary fence of Berengrave LNR, a lovely little seasonally flooded chalk pit where many roosts happen.

A couple of days before I'd been talking with one local who was moaning about the lack of birds in there (he'd spent 90 minutes looking for a Firecrest and seen 'not a single bird' in that time). The answer is simple really; a lot (but not all, as 'not a single bird' is birder code for 'not a single bird worth lifting bins for') make their way out of the waterlogged quarry to feed. Some a few kilometres, some just hopping the fence into adjacent gardens. Allotment Fatballs sometimes attract a Long-tailed Tit flock with 'fellow travellers', so my Count Day plan is to stop off for lunch here and watch the feeders. All expectation over reality.

Today as well. All wet'n'orrible this afternoon. I could hear the Chaffinch coming in, a couple of 'crests too. But all a bit grim for any dusk fly-bys. I had to make do with chasing off the North American Bushy-tailed Tree-rats. Made it feel like a real CBC I s'pose.

Ah well. These three scouting days prior to the Count Day aren't compulsory. Besides, there's always tomorrow. Now, what's the forecast?

Oh. Bugger.

Kev's Christmas Bird Count: Why?

Why? Simples. I fancy a holiday from my standard south Medway birding!

The standard Audubon Christmas Bird Count couldn't really work here, as purpose/results are mostly covered by existing standard surveys. Mostly. Of course, most of our standard survey efforts never seem to appeal that many birders. Heck, even old fashioned January 1st bird races seem to have lost some of their appeal. 

But, and hear me out here, what if finding a way for a parts of the county to get 'thrashed' for a winter week, with several teams out cooperating to ensure as many 'subsites' get covered as possible, was promoted/sold as fun? Working towards a combined score of not just species, but numbers present? That even feeder watchers can take part in (a warm up for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch). That'd be something different, maybe something that could get a Society more publicity/ more members?

But no-one's going to risk it here. Are they?


Some CBC basics:

• Get your Circle: A Christmas Bird Count must take place entirely within a 24 kilometre (15-mile) diameter circle.

Yup, drawn it (good ol' Google Earth) in a way so as to get all my south shore sites in. Just a game for me, I'm sure of a county adapted CBC as a 'Tick Week' or similar they could base around county sub-recording areas or..

• Centre Point: The same centre point should be used each year.
.. 10km squares. Yup, for my game, my rules, centre point is Greenborough. But if this county did it they could choose square-shaped circles - the existing OS 10km square mapping. Really Doesn't work for my 2021 CBC game as Medway estuary is spread over two of them.

• Circle Overlap: Circles should not overlap neighbouring counts.
Hah! One reason why circles could never work here. There'd be riots over positioning. We already have tetrads for many of our other existing surveys. This is just for a bit of fun, my fun. I've done a circle to allow me a birding holiday during my Count Week and I'm excited- heck, I might even visit a wood.. 

• Count Period: Your count needs to be conducted within the official count period, between December 14 and January 5, inclusive.
Yup. Big period because some of the very old CBCs (been going for more than a century) were spread out between these dates. I'm sure if this caught on among Brit birders most would base their Count Week in/around the Xmas Hols. They could treat it all as scouting for their forthcoming all-important Jan 1st kick off for the Year List.

• Count Day: Your count must be conducted within one 24-hour calendar day.
Yup. It's like a Brit Bird Race. But with counts.

• Birds outside the circle seen by an observer standing in the circle should not be included in your census data.
Yup. (Fun making sure the circle covered all my seawatching spots/distances).

• Count Hours & Observers: Count Day should have a minimum of 8 hours coverage, either by one party or cumulative by a number of parties.
Yup. Mine's really just a solo low-carbon bird race within a circle. But with counts.

• ID by Voice: Birds may be identified by voice, but specimens or tracks are cw (count week) birds (unless you can document the fact that the specimen/track wasn’t present in the area earlier than the count day).
Yay, none of that 'heard only' rubbish. And dead birds or a Shrike larder count.

• Linear pelagic CBCs are allowed, if the boat follows the same transect or covers the same area each season.
Hmmm, not for me p/haps, but opens up opportunities.

• Scheme requests that each CBC circle maintain one point of contact for emailing of count materials, receipt of update emails on the CBC, and data entry of the count results. This primary circle contact needs to provide their name, address, email, and phone number to the Scheme's office upon creation of the circle. An email address is required for this primary contact. This one primary compiler may also designate other secondary compilers to receive emails, but only one main contact per circle can be maintained for other reasons.
Yup. If it ever caught on, it'd need coordinating. Why a Society really needs to get behind it here. This effort of mine is just a bit of fun, so I'm voting myself chief. Woohoo!

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So, what is Count Week?

Count Week is defined as from 3 days before to 3 days after your official Count Day. If your official count day is December 18th, then your Count Week extends from Dec 15th to Dec 21st. (The U.S. official Day Count period is Dec 14th- Jan 5th, so a Count Week can start from as early as Dec 11th and end as late as Jan 8th.)

Count Week (CW) birds are 'place holders' for that species on your checklist. They are not at all a part of your official census data for that season's day. For us Brits, they'd be week ticks. But they're not ticks, because they don't count for scoring. They're an absence/presence.

Birds seen during the three days before or after your count day but NOT on your official count day get recorded on the CBC checklist as "CW". No more, no less. No other information about count week birds is recorded in the CBC database. No counts, not even the date. They use the info in some obscure statistical witchcraft, but for participants nothing else matters. Of course, you can be encouraged to submit your data as per every other day of the year.

Count week listings do not count toward your species total or toward your number of individuals on count day.

It is not a requirement of the CBC to go birding during count week, but scouting time ahead of the count day, if it occurs during count week, can be an opportunity to rack up these other birds.

Numbers for any species seen on the official Count Day are the ones to be included. Even if larger numbers of a given species were found during count week than on count day, only the tally from the official census day should be entered on your CBC checklist.

Owling: Now this term doesn't mean what we Brits would limit it to; it covers all sorts of nocturnal birding. Nocturnal birding is an optional activity on CBCs. Scouting for nocturnal species prior to the count day help the Count Day score, or simply finding after the event gets birds for the CW tally. 

So, Kev's Christmas Bird Count week:

Friday 17th December: scout day.
Saturday 18th: scout day
Sunday 19th: scout day
* Monday 20th December: Count Day *
Tuesday 21st: missing spp. day
Wednesday 22nd: missing spp. day
Thursday 23rd: missing spp. day

The beauty of those missing spp. days is that they only add a species as 'CW'. They don't count as a score in any way/shape/form; just an excuse for going birding. Missing spp. days? North shore here I come! And perhaps a wood? Oh yes!

The route on the day.

I'm not 'bird racing'. I want to take part as if I were operating in a CBC circle team. The circle coordinator gets teams to cover specific areas, they make sure the circle is well covered. Tough job, they have to try and make sure no team gets the back end of beyond but might have to get a crew to go for low total/ high value species in a particular habitat.

Me, I'll be on one linear route, on foot, somewhere through this zone:

In a 'proper' CBC you have to note miles covered per hour and by what transport (an hour's seawatch goes down as zero miles) which then enables the number crunchers to calculate observer effort vs. detection rate, etc. Pftf. I'm out to show this concept to be fun. I'll be taking on the just the western basin on Count Day. Sure, I'd get a higher species score in the eastern basin, but I'm pretending another 'team' has got that covered on the day. I'm just having fun. This Count isn't a race. I can go look for 'CW' species there during the week.

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So, that's the set-up. There'll be daily reports both here and on twitter. Let's put some fun back in this 'barely-functional birder' over the next 7 days: #CBCMedwayEstuary is go!

Seeing the wood for the trees: if you count an orchard you'll get an orchard distribution

Modern orchards are grim. Uniformly grim. They look unnatural. And, of course, they are. Line after line after line, row after row after row, unnatural clones on a parade ground.

Dive into spatial distribution c/o the excellent 'Shorebird ecology, conservation and management', (Colwell) and you come upon the technical term for such even spacing in nature- 'hyperdispersal'. For a pleb like me, the alternative names in use listed there are 'even distribution' and 'orchard distribution'. For a Kentish pleb in the uprooted tree stumps of the now patioed Garden of England, the latter is by far the easiest to remember.

Hyperdispersal/ orchard distribution can happen, but all too often bird flocks really aren't that uniform.

Let's look at a feeding flock of Brent Geese. At first glance they could be thought to be uniform over the field, all spread out in regimental formation. But there's a thining at the edges, a clumping in the middle. Look a little more closely, and those edge scatterings are more to be found at both the front and rear of the feeding direction of the flock as it travels forward grazing. Then notice the depth; the flock isn't rectangular, but ovate.

Age the birds and there will be more youngsters at the front and rear.

Adults are experienced feeders. They can crop grass at similar rates, move more rhythmically together. Youngsters are still learning, and can often find themselves out towards the edges. As the season goes on, the effect becomes more apparent; mum and dad put themselves first. Efficiency in the centre, inefficiency at the edges. Safer in the centre, but you have to have learnt to work in harmony with your neighbours.

(Why one counter often gets a different ratio of adults to youngsters in the same flock. One checks all the birds, one checks, say, the first fifty then estimates. Also why the former finds more Black Brant than the latter.)

Take another of my favourite birds, the Woodpigeon. Once again feeding flocks are following orchard distributions. Much better to keep the youngsters to the edges, where they tend to spread themselves a little more. Easier pickings for a predator. And the adults might clump on the easiest escape route.

Even the fields themselves, be they full of Woodies or Brents, play a part in driving uneven dispersal patterns. They might appear fairly uniform at first glance. But look more closely, there are varying amounts of edge cover, undulations, drainage. Lots of little things, all having an effect.

Of course, the 11,735 acres of our man-made Medway mudflats here might look uniform to start with, but they really aren't. Tidal flow rates, deposition rates, substrata; all why there are so many recognised tidal zones.

And yet some birders still argue for a uniform approach. If there's 100 on 'species X' in this section, there'll be 100 of 'species X' in the next. Here I've been told that that overcounts during surveys (c/o disturbance movements such as when birds are flushed from 'Sector A' to 'Sector B') are acceptable as they make up for any uncounted sectors on the day. They really don't. 'Sector C' might well not have been counted, but you can't just say the overcount in 'Sector B' has made up for that. A species might hate the conditions in 'Sector C'. All sectors vary day to day, tide to tide, neap to spring, ebb to flow, high pressure to low.

Let's look at Avocets again, in/around the western basin. When I first got back in 2013 I was playing at distributions on hand-drawn maps. This map below was based on my sightings during first full month back, January 2013. Heat-mapped pre-roost gatherings with final roosts marked. Nowadays I appreciate much more- how those pre-roost lines on water's edge are connected to low-tide feeding behaviours/areas. Now there's also a new roost site within the Nor/Bishop complex, and a swim-roost just off Bloors often seen thanks to increasing disturbance levels (tidal and human) on the RSPB reserve in the past decade. The Otterham roost is also mainly just neap/low springs. The blue flightlines are still in constant use. Starts off complex, gets more complicated. It might seem that December '21 is similar to January '13, but it really isn't.

Low tide feeding in the Medway is not by orchard distribution.
Intra-tidal movements are not uniform.
High tide roosting does not fit orchard distribution modelling.

The 2013 WeBS Sectors are also marked. Easy to appreciate/evidence nowadays how an Avocet feeding in mid-estuary at low tide the could get as being present in any one of three, four sectors if the counter takes stock at the counts at covering, and could then also end up using up to four different sectors over a single spring high tide, making it all-too easy for duplication.

But does such duplication simply make up for under/non- counts elsewhere?

The 2021 WeBS map on the BTO Website currently shows three vacant count sectors which I've marked in green (one being a split of a 2013 sector, the other two extending further east off the edge of my l'il sketchy map):

Back in January 2013 birds were using southern edge of Millfordhope as a pre-roost gathering, sometimes just moving a little east to Greenborough to roost, other times flighting (off-map) to Funton. Sometimes dozens, sometimes hundreds.

And the recorded flightlines evidenced that disturbance around Motney had pushed those red roosts off east to Greenborough and Funton that month. Nowadays they might use Bloors more when disturbed but, yes, do from time to time make that longer flight.

And still some WeBS sectors have yet to ever hold these main roosts/ large feeding numbers.

My first map cut off about 90% of Barksore marshes (the westernmost green sector) and rightly so as I hadn't yet started walking the Callum ridge for views over them. I had yet to appreciate how well used Barksore fleet could be by Millfordhope/ Greenborough/ Funton birds as a sheltered/safe roost.

TLDNR? Those green sectors really don't have orchard distributions either.

So, could a WeBS sector count where  a species total known to include displaced birds from earlier be accepted as 'true' because it is simply making up for those birds presumed present in an uncounted sector? Of course not.

I chose Avocet for this example as they're big and easy to identify. The same, but different, variances in feeding/roosts, sector by sector, happen for all the wader/wildfowl species here during the winter; they're just a tad harder to pick up on from a few casual visits. Definitely from a once-a-month count.

Orchard distribution simply cannot be expected at the scale of WeBS sectors currently in use here. All of our WeBS sector 'orchards' have differing levels of appeal at different tide heights, times of year, weather conditions. Why WeBS has to be coordinated.

"Such synchronisation is imperative where teams of counters are required to cover large sites.. and the possibility of local, within-site movements by the birds during the counting period is high. Local Organisers should ensure coordination in these cases."

Yes, this is a subject I go on about, some think ad nauseum. But it has big knock-ons. 

Another heatmap with a quote from the BTO's Research Paper on the huge collapse in numbers for many species here. For any local reading this paper the warning lights really should have come on at this point, with regard to there being only small numbers of Redshank found on other sectors of the Medway.

Tell that to the Medway Redshank.

If WeBS is incomplete, if WeBS has uncoordinated counts, you cannot then simply assume orchard distribution.

It has knock-ons. The WeBS results are used by national bodies, and poor methodology will help get an estuary recognised as being in poor condition, and dropping down the national league tables.

The following screengrab is from HM govt's Magic map. Look at the all the red for the western basin where the numbers supposedly collapsed- how much of that is influenced by less than robust data?

(Insert on this slide a reminder WeBS also provides legally required data for international returns as well. Another reason why a need to get right.)

Who in their right mind would throw good money at an estuary where there has already been a huge decline in numbers? Would we expect RSPB to, say, do anything about their Nor marsh reserve when the money can be put to better use elsewhere? Why save Nor when there aren't that many birds? Other considerations as well; the RSPB also wants bang for their bucks, and people can't visit Nor.

Less than robust WeBS data has played a large part in recording such a huge decline in this estuary's standing.

We can't blame the likes of NE, JNCC, DEFRA for it. We've been told for years now that we need full coordinated coverage, robust data, to appreciate fully and help protect our estuary appropriately:

To help meet legal protections for our SPAs we also now have our Bird Wise codes in place. To argue that it is okay to ignore such codes and go disturb birds routinely whilst monitoring for robust data might, just might, justify such bending the rules. But it was already known results were somewhat less than robust before Bird Wise arrived. To simply continue disturbing birds for known flawed data, at a time when all user groups on the estuary are being asked to refrain from roost disturbance, should be unacceptable.

Shouldn't it?

Why don't you turn off your mobile phone (and go and do something more local instead?) - December

 > Waders: December sees the start of peak counts for many species, and WeBS counting this month is due to happen on the 19th, which is the end of a neap tide cycle. Most WeBS counts happen on springs, but with such short daylight hours beggars cannot be choosers, so counts away from this date will be useful, especially any around the spring tides.

(General rule of thumb for the Medway, neap high tides are usually early mornings, springs afternoons. More chance of seeing waders close to shore if go first thing. See (6) below..)

> Wildfowl: also settled if conditions remain temperate. Some birders tend to overlook as 'they don't do much', just loafing during daylight hours. A lot of feeding takes place at night. First, last hour of daylight best for higher levels of activity. If tide is also covering/uncovering at the time, all the better.

> Diurnal migration: all over. Birds, generally, are somewhere close to their preferred overwintering site. Time to think of hard weather movements. The trick remains not to get too excited by temperatures alone as most only move if food resource threatened. For estuarine birds this often means snow and ice, and they won't move straight away either. They can sit out two, three days on reserves.
I'm a bit odd, I keep fingers crossed for a lack of such movements. Many individuals just stick to their chosen spot and hope for an improvement in conditions. Why so many waders die in extreme conditions. Sure, we'll see flights of Lapwings, Golden Plovers on the move, but their food is generally available in most fields. More specialist feeders bank on their local knowledge seeing them through.

> Nocturnal migrants: Again, essentially over. Migration from summer quarters to wintering grounds is done. But if you think as the wintering area as an extremely large core area with spread food resource, you might, just might get to 'see' the small waves of, say, thrushes and Starlings that keep crossing to/from Europe. David Lack's early radar studies established that birds still cross the Channel in both directions throughout the winter (think 'hard weather' again- birds can retreat if weather becomes mild again). Still worth a look at the skies first thing. 

> Seawatching: You guessed it. Once again, essentially over. But a watch for an hour or two more toward the mouth will give you a chance to pick up any inter-estuary movements (e.g. some Brent like the Medway to roost, the Thames to feed), or readjusting overnight tidal drift (e.g. species such as Great Northern Diver that hold a 'territory', perhaps over a good crabbing stretch). Plus, the more you observe common species, in various weather conditions, the easier it will be to pick out the oddity next autumn.

> Roosts: Peak times. And often possible to miss the real peak. Those small waves of too-ing/ fro-ing thrushes, as they search for new food sources and safe roosts, might only be present for a few days. Even at sites such as Berengrave LNR, the flooded chalk pit might not really be as undisturbed as needed, and big counts are often "blink and you'll miss 'em". Once a month visits aren't enough.
(2021- a new flightline viewpoint has opened up at southern end Otterham seawall, c/o the major scrub clearance by one private landowner. Thrushes (and fellow travellers) flighting into Motney's reedbed scrub are now much easier to pick up.)

Tide sites of the month

  1) A spring covering at Bloors wharf. Many waders are now fueling up through most of the tidal cycle, and choose not to roost early, but follow the tide up. The flats around Rainham creek will hold many of the central estuary feeders after the 3.0 metre mark. 

  2) A neap high tide at Rushenden. The wrecks and saltings here often hold photogenic numbers at this time.

  3) An ebb off of Horrid Hill. So. Many. Flightlines.  


My perfect December day would be...

 - Morning: First hour of light, the seawall at the Old Brickfields, Lower Halstow. Passerines moving from roost. Field-feeding waders flighting south inland. And the sounds of the wildfowl.

 - Mid-day: Checking inland fields at the easternmost end of the estuary.

 - Late on: A quick check of the basins at Chatham Dockside for the start of the estuary gull roosts. Birds are moving north up the tidal river from mid-afternoon. Get to the Strand, Fairmile wharf by sunset itself and the numbers can be really impressive. Not there to find an oddity, this is all about the movement, a white flurry in the fading light as thousands of birds head for mid-estuary.

Top 10 tips for December:

General birding:

1) Keep a note of wind speeds. This affects numbers. Birds often hunker down in creeks, gullies and tideways, not revealing themselves until forced to. The stronger the wind, the lower the number of birds present on view.

2) Kent is on the colder eastern coast. With passerine escape movements south-west because of weather, only some, not all, will move back. Why counts can keep dropping from this month. And hard-weather movements will see more birds straight through than decide to stay. If you want some high winter counts, December is your month. Earlier the better.

3) Remember Alert Distances. Some species will allow closer approach due to 'risk/reward' - they have to risk allowing you closer so they can keep feeding. But don't stop your approach only at first flush; as soon as a bird shows any sign of alert, that will be close enough.

4) Estuary winds are not your friend. Whatever temperature that forecaster tells you, prepare for a couple of degrees lower. Onshore winds (and windchill) always catch people out. This time of year one hat is never enough. Walking, sure, but as soon as I set up a stop, a lightweight balaclava goes under the warm hat, plus a thin bandana pulled down to act as a second snood. They both live in the pocket otherwise.

Doesn't matter how daft you look, we have no hides here, we have no tea rooms overlooking the flats. Keep warm.

5) It's Christmasssssss(!). The walls will be heaving over the Christmas period. Fact of life. Christmas Day can be pretty quiet (why I always go out for a few hours) but from then until back-to-work, visitor numbers to the walls will be at around their winter peaks.
Expect birds to be shuffled. Get out early to beat the crowds.

Tips for adding value:

6) Mimic BTO WeBS Core Areas. If you can count to same boundaries, then your numbers can provide great comparisons. An interactive map of WeBS Core Areas for the whole country can be found here. This month we look at the WeBS Core Areas for the Riverside Country Park: 

The RCP is covered by three WeBS sectors. The first and third both actually cover larger areas than the RCP boundary, but make sense based on the underlying flats (RCP shoreline boundaries marked by blue line). Spring high tides see very few of these roosts remain available over the top of the tide, with most birds moving more centrally, but, on a neap, several easy to count roosts can hold a large number of the birds that feed on these flats.

On neaps, WeBS sector 22954 ("Copperhouse Bay") holds roosts at (west to east)
- Medway Cruising Club hulks
- Gillingham marshes
- Copperhouse marsh
- Sharps Green Bay hulks (also available on spring tides)
- Horrid saltings

WeBS sector 22949 ("Riverside Country Park")
Three main roost areas all within Rainham Saltings (all go under on higher springs)

WeBS sector 22948 ("Bloors Wharf")
If undisturbed, neap roosts may form around Rainham Docks East and along the western shore of Motney Hill (sadly, very disturbed since lockdown).

Why model your counts in such a way they supplement WeBS? Well, using that link for the interactive map, zoom in and click on any one of these core areas, then click on 'view details'. It will show you a map, say if the sector is vacant and, if you scroll down, show the number of counts made 
22954 Best year in last eleven? Just four monthly counts took place. Three years, no counts whatsoever.
22949 Again, best year saw just four WeBS counts. Five years, zero counts.
22948 Best year, 12 counts (but not at high tide, made on covering). Four years, zero counts.

Doing these counts in coordination with the rib that counts the islands is always difficult, and these shoreline counts might seem disheartening when numbers are low on springs.

But this is all part of why NE, JNCC and DEFRA can say WeBS not fit for purpose on the Medway, and why they appeal for full coordinated coverage. Your supplemental counts can be of use. (And WeBS itself can always use more counters, either for sectors, or acting as reserves, etc. This is probably one of the most complex estuaries in UK to coordinate.)

---

BTO WeBS Alerts are issued for those species for which a site was nationally/internationally important at the time it became protected (the 'designated features'). Of our 15 designated features here, at the last formal calculation (for 91/92- 16/17) 9 had High Alerts issued, 3 Medium Alerts. All counts for any of these species can prove useful data. Check their excellent interactive webpage out for full details, species accounts and graphs.

7) Make your Avocets count:

Odd choice, as not anywhere high alert, but a species for which our high protection levels were granted. So, let's have a happy story for once.

Short-term (5 years) +81% Medium term (10 years) +47% Long term (25 years) +755%

The problem here is getting to grips with the numbers. Low-tide feeding often sees groups feeding in creek shallows, and birds may then roost nearby. They do not necessarily come together, but disturbance can lead to some substantial movements over a high-tide period. I recently watched a group flushed from one count zone to another, then to a third, in the space of two hours. If anything, there is now more of a chance of overcounting than undercounting. Why coordinated counts best or, failing that, counts recorded with a time as well.

8) Make your Curlews count:

High alert (for long-term term trend):

Short-term (5 years) +11% Medium term (10 years) -14% Long term (25 years) -68%

Another species that seemingly suffered greatly in the 1990s crash here, but one we've failed to get a full grip on when it comes to numbers, thanks to the number that travel inland at dawn to field-feed. All counts welcomed, especially any counts of birds moving south at dawn (Lower Halstow and Chetney/Funton most important sites for these movements.

9) Count a 'non-bird': Goldeneye:

'Non-featured species' on WeBS Alerts are those for which we do not hold 'important numbers' at national/international but for which we have enough data down the years for trends to be monitored. On the SSSI Alert, Goldeneye sticks out like a sore thumb:

Short-term (5 years) -100% Medium term (10 years) -100% Long term (25 years) -100%

And yet there are a couple of favoured spots where birds are often present in winter months, albeit in small numbers; around Bartlett/ South Yantlet creeks, and the junction of Twinney/ Halstow and Stangate creeks. All counts will be useful data.

10) And this month's whacky suggestion is: try a Christmas Bird Count.

We Brits used to love our January 1st Birdrace. A little less so in recent years, but still a fun way to get the year list up and running. And we often go countywide.

The Yanks and Canucks play a different game over the festive period. The Christmas Bird Count.

The CBC has been going for over a century, and has some pretty in-depth instructions, available here.

This year I've decided it might be fun to try a slimmed-down version.

A CBC is pretty much local birding - all takes place within a fifteen mile diameter circle.

You choose a count day between December 14th- January 5th. That is your '24 hour race equivalent', only you will be counting numbers as well tallying species present.

The three days either side of your day make up your count week. Take your CBC day list/ counts and add on any additional species from week as 'CW'. (Bonus points!)

Your time off from work could be your 'count week'. I'll try mine pre-Christmas (still working on date), to see how it goes and perhaps incentivise some to try a bit of a CBC week on Xmas hols. Lots more rules, but this is just a taster. As always, playing solo, but CBCs are done in teams. For my part, an excuse to perhaps (I said perhaps) go over to the north shore (haven't been since pre-lockdown) or even (gasp) visit a half-decent wood.

The circle is drawn. Watch for news on twitter @dunnokev w. #CBCMedwayEstuary.

Hot off the press for 2021:

 - The new Red Data list is out. The excellent journal 'British Birds' has kindly made an open-access .pdf available of their December '21 article on the changes. Well worth a look, especially if you're not familiar with 'BB'.


For those who keep score, this month's potential:

(Since moving back in 2013, checks at the end of each year have shown annual totals in the 180s, 190s. That's helped by my birding daily here, but a north Kent 200 should be on for someone willing to chase it. This might help incentivise.)

November? 105 species for the month should be an achievable target.

If you're aiming high, but birding purely the southern shore through the year, based on my numbers you might be past 175 by now and if you've been cheekily been including that estuary extension out into the Deep Water Channel, you could, could, just be touching 190.

And finally, something for the listers: what's Medway missing?

This month's top three dreams/nightmares:

  1) Richard's Pipit. They have been on the north shoreline before, but that's Hoo. (Hoo listers get touchy about this. Even if one turned up on tide-covered north Medway saltings they wouldn't let us have it.) Time for one on the southern shore.

  2) Just dangling this out there as turning up more and more on the Hoo Peninsula (again, mustn't get the Hoo listers testy) -  Glossy Ibis. Got to be a chance of one being picked up by other local birders, and money is on it being one in flight.

  3) Finally, let's go daft; American Coot. Simply throwing this one in here as an enticement to get people looking at (and counting) Coots. Most years the peak monthly WeBS count for Coot could be beaten by just one of the southern shore's peninsulas. Admittedly, scanning through thee beasts out on distant private land can be hard, but one wearing a MAGA baseball cap should be easy enough to spot. (Ho ho ho). Seriously, someone has got to put the effort in.


All just a bit of fun; if you do turn something up, well done, if not, it'll have been a hoot trying.

That's it for December. Time to get out there and look...