THE Moore LISTS... 20 years of birds

 

Let's face it, if you're a birder, you're also a lister... These may simply be quick tallies in a notebook or, if you're like me, colour-coded spreadsheets. I have always kept lists... life lists, year lists, site lists and at one point even a somewhat creepily voyeuristic 'birds I've seen mating' list, a 'birds I've seen while taking a leak' list and the rather obscure, 'birds I've seen whilst standing on one leg and looking through the wrong end of my scope' list - the latter was rather short. However, that was then and this is now and these days, having given up twitching over a decade ago, I keep just three lists - all of them from Moore. The lists I now keep are (i) my year list (ii) my life list and (iii) a Moore MASTER LIST that records all species seen by anybody that I know about. The latter is, because I don't have access to ALL records from Moore necessarily probably incomplete, however I think it contains the majority of species recorded at the site. If you have others, please DO comment them below as I'd like to come up with as definitive a list as possible...

Lets' look first at YEAR LISTS. If you click on the blog links you'll find several of these from the past and a running total of the current list on the right-hand side of the main page. Currently it stands at a paltry 66 and so I'm a long way off my best year where I was ONE short of the magical 140 species and 10 short of the reported patch year record of 149, although I read that in a forum and can't personally attribute it to anyone, nor find any online confirmation. If that is a real tally, who's is it? Answers in the comments please...

140 is certainly a good target to aim for if you're a Moore patcher, but that kind of ballpark tally was in days of old when the dump was still open and you could get 8-10 species of gulls, when LSW was a regular, hence 3 woodpeckers were easy and when Long-eared Owl roosted every year, both Little Owl and Barn Owl bred on site and SEO was a winter regular on Norton Marsh. In addition, to get close to a 140, you'd need a cracking few passage sessions to pick up waders at Halfway House, which can yield 18+ species in a good year. On top of that you need all the migrants and a good sprinkling of irregular species to come close. Even with all that, I never quite managed it, which is strange given that 50 spp days are a regular thing for me at Moore... they just happen, I guess, to be mostly the same 50 species lol. Cut to the present day and at the moment, even breaking 100 looks challenging... however, the patch is full of surprises and my gut is telling me my final year tally will be either 117 or 125. We shall see...

My LIFE LIST is a little better... emphasis on little. It stands at 152. Adding new species is hard and I'm lucky to add 1 or 2 every few years, such is the way of things and it's perhaps not surprising, because my best estimate of the MOORE MASTER LIST for the reserve, based on the past 20 years is somewhere around 181 species. So I'm missing 29. When you see the list (below), you'll appreciate the challenge of growing a patch life list when you've missed historical birds and new stuff only turns up once in a blue moon. SO, here's what I DON'T have that other DO have (lucky them), according to the records...

White-fronted Goose, Lesser White-fronted Goose, Ruddy Shelduck, Mandarin Duck, Red-crested Pochard, Ring-necked Duck, Common Scoter, Bar-tailed Godwit, Black-winged Pratincole, Kittiwake, Ring-billed Gull, American Herring Gull, Caspian Gull, Arctic Tern, Great Skua, Glossy Ibis, Sacred Ibis, Great White Egret, Osprey, Hobby, Honey Buzzard, Rough-legged Buzzard, Black Kite (I put it down to a string at the time, so didn't bother going for it - doh!), Ring-necked Parakeet, Marsh Tit, Bearded Tit, Wood Warbler, Yellow-browed Warbler, Pied Flycatcher