This year we will be holding the 5th annual patch watch on the fairly traditional date of April 29th, it seems this is about the right time of year to coincide with maximum migration, though of course it all comes down to the weather leading up to, and on, the day.
In 2012 I helped a team of London Bird Racers to a glorious victory by finding a handful of species at Walthamstow that they had so far missed by the end of their very long day chasing around the capital. In scouting for them I personally saw 75 species on the patch that day. This got me thinking what we might be able to acheive if there were a team of us on the patch all day. Thus was born AWPW1 the following year.
In the last four years we have seen 98 species all told, with annual totals varying between 74 and 88. Below is a handy free souvenir for you to cut out and keep, the green highlighted species are pretty much a given if you put the leg work in, the amber highlighted species are ones that you need to be aware of looking for, those highlighted in red are the cream on the cake and cannot be relied upon every year.
Feel free to join in, you can find the extent of the patch on the Patch tab Please share your sightings, especially of the red highlighted species or anything even better. Send tweets to @birdingprof and I will relay the news, alternatively post sightings (as they happen please, so we can chase them) on the London Birders Wiki Site
Can we not include Tottenham Marsh as it's adjacent, just to West, you're including Wild Marsh East so why not the rest? Nature doesn't follow borough boundaries and nor should we....
ReplyDeleteBy all means include whatever you please, this is only a fun day. The rationale behind the patch boundaries was explained in the dim and distant past somewhere on the blog.
ReplyDeleteRecording boundaries are certainly a human preserve, as you rightly say, nature doesn't follow boundaries.
For consistency sake though we will only include in the count species seen on, over or from the patch during the AWPW5.