2025 was a quiet birding one for me, as I moved into a tumbledown grade 2 listed cottage and have spent all my time, energy and money renovating it this year! Thankfully, the rest of the team made up for it and we have reached a grand total of 113 species of bird for the year.
This is a pretty good total, even with some really obvious birds missing from our list. AWOL birdies include jack snipe, merlin, pintail, ring-necked parakeet, common tern, white-fronted goose, grasshopper warbler and whooper swan; all of which we have had regularly in previous years. With these added, we would have smashed our best ever record of 116 in 2021, but it wasn't meant to be this year.
Highlights for the year were our first ever bar-tailed godwit and marsh harrier in April - what a month! Our first brambling since 2021 (in my cottage garden of all places) and our first shelduck since 2020! We saw little-ringed plover and golden plover back on the list for the fist time in 4 years too. It was also great to see spotted flycatcher and woodcock back after two years off. A festive gift of a wryneck having been seen in September came in on Christmas Eve, making it three brand new sparkly birds added to the Warwick 100 all-time list this year. Not bad at all!
So, the slate is now wiped clean and we start again tomorrow. I'm hoping to get out and about a bit more, now the majority of the work on the cottage is done, and the rest of the team will continue to be awesome in their chilled out, teamy kind of way. Let's see what kind of total we can make in 2026...
Happy New Year all and very happy birding to everyone.
Lizzy and the Warwick 100 team
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