SOLWAY: D&G Birding.

Well, shouldn't be too long (if rumours are to be believed) before the next D&G bird report is out. Just had a look through the last one (2006) and about 215 species were seen that year. Last year I saw 196 in D&G just by spending a few weeks hols there and weekends and without twitching. Most of the species on the yearlist were "self-founds". We didn't miss much - Black-necked Grebe, Black Tern, Hoopoe, Red-breasted Goose, Red-necked Phalarope, Black Grouse Brambling and Storm Petrel spring to mind though. So bearing in mind that most county listers get well over 200 in a year, D&G isn't a goldmine for birding. Of course there will be a few things we didn't hear about as well as one or two that we should have.
In the end keeping a D&G yearlist wasn't sch a mundane excercise as first thought (I don't really do the "numbers game"). For instance we struggled to see Redwings until the end of the year; Magies were genuinely rare (as discussed of late on the D&G birding yahoo group - see link on the right of this site); Jays only seen infrequently; Ring Ouzel, Reed Warblers and Lesser Whitethroats are rarities and Green Woodpeckers are surprisingly hard to come by. Corn Bunting, Little Owl, Turtle Dove and Yellow Wagtail are all but gone, although we did manage to find the latter two on our travels.
The D&G bird report has changed its format a fair bit too. The last one covered just 2006. Some cover two years (and I am led to believe that the next one will too), at least one has covered a four year period.

The problem with covering just the one year is that if your county is under watched (as D&G surely is), the report may need a bit of "padding out". Click on the above and have a read (thanks to Gavin Haig for this idea by the way). If you can't fill the report with birds seen that year, why not fill it with birds that were seen over a century ago or weren't even seen at all! Genius!
Anyway, I look forward to the next report in great anticipation and returning north of the border for some more quality birding. So it's the D&G Corn Bunting and Little Owl challenge this year then.