2020 Review, July to December

Part one of this review HERE. 

July

We finally managed to get a holiday this year, a great week on the Lizard Peninsula . Highlights included this group of Cattle Egrets (above), Adders (below) and a few moth lifers including Coxcomb Prominent (below that) .

Also thanks to Tony Blunden did a bit of botanising on the Lizard, load of lifers including this Autumn Squill (above) and the extremely rare and localised Wild Asparagus (below) 

Jacob and I on holday 

Back on the regular circuit started regular trips into Kent as the autumn started to kick in- this Lesser Yellowlegs at Oare was an early autumn highlight.

The mini-farm by July 

 August

Trips to Kent produced the regular Oare Marshes Bonaparte's Gull 

A heatwave in August produced some great mothing- new species for Beddington included Scarce Oak Knot-horn (above) and Dark Umber (below) 

Had a family trip with a night mothing at Waterstock Local Nature Reserve . The local vicar called the land owner within 5 minutes exclaiming ' Quick Henry, strap up drums, you've got Gypsies on your land'  (lol !!) 

In August we had a big push on the Save the Lapwings at Beddington Farmlands campaign (above and below) . Petition now over 60,000 supporters SEE HERE

Harvest time at the mini-farm (above and below) 

September

Despite three national lockdowns in 2020 the worst month of incarceration for me was September as Steve my brother took the month off to tour the UK and I was stuck at the helm of the business during a very busy month . Very little birding done - one of the highlights was a relatively long staying Great Egret at the farmlands 

October

To make up for having to work flat out during September I tried to take the whole of October off to look for rarities. A pretty good result with finding an Eastern Stonechat (above) showing characteristics of Stejneger's Stonechat, a Dusky Warbler (below), Pallas's Warbler (below that), Dotterel ( a local mega) (below even further) and an Arctic Skua at Beddington (keep going down). 

The arrival of one of Knepp's White Storks to Beddington Farmlands was an autumn highlight (its still there - in December) 

October at the mini-farm- time to go full circle and get it ready for a few winter crops and ready for next Spring 

November 

November highlights included these Scaup at Farmoor . Spent a lot of November catching up with report and paper writing. Finally publishing our paper on Azores Gull (below) was a highlight of the year . Link to paper HERE

Also published the Azores report in November HERE and thanks to an excellent secretary (Pedro) on the Portuguese Rarities Committee we also published two national reports this year too.

December

Highlight of December so far has been the invasion of Russian White-fronted Geese (these were on Clapham Common). Hopefully still one or two highlights to add to this review before the year end. Overall been an extremely interesting year and absolutely loved birding the UK in autumn for the first time in over two decades.