Spring, Summer & the future...

So, we're half way thru the year. Those first 6 months have flew by. I'm currently typing this whilst sat on a fence overlooking a large expanse of cereal fields in west Notts in the vain hope that a Quail might just start singing. Ya see, I require Quail this year for my Notts year list. It currently stands at 170, not bad for an inland county in 6 months. However, my desired target of 200, only 30 more species, seems well out of reach. The reason being that I had such a good spring which saw me mop up all of the regular stuff & a fairly decent chunk of all the rare & scarce but that's the issue. There just wasn't alot of the 'R&S' to attack. It's gonna have to be quite some autumn if I'm gonna snatch the year list record (which in my personal opinion is held jointly by Mike Hodgkin & Paul Naylor with 198 - 1995 & 2012 respectively).
Here are some of the highlights of my year so far...

So, that's how this post should have begun. I scribed that bit above at the end of June on my tablet and was hoping to continue it when I got home later that day. Luckily I saved it because on returning home I discovered that my WIFI hub thing had gone to live with the Hubs in the clouds. For the last c2 month I've managed to scrape by checking Twitter & posting shit on that Facebook by utilising BT's pretty abysmal Wifi-with-Fon (whatever that means) but I've been unable to have a connection long enough to watch the first five minutes of an online porno (ya know that bit where they chat shit for a while, setting the scene etc) never mind sit here scribing bollocks about my birding adventures... Birding adventures, yes, that's what they were, Spring 2014 was pretty eventful from what I recall. I'd managed to acquire three & half months off work for paternity leave, It began on Feb 14th & terminated at the end of May. Anyway, the blog post prior to this gives you all that starting info, covering Feb & March. This one is about April etc although it's not gonna be that concise cos for one, I really can't be arsed, two, I've forgotten loads of what I did and three, the wife & baby are gonna be home soon so my peace is gonna be shattered...
So last time we ended on March 25th, I think, I'd just year ticked Sand Martin. What followed for the next cfour weeks was truly memorable. March 31st saw me & Isabela snooping around at Lound (Yes Lound, I don't go in for all this ridiculous Idle Valley Nature Reserve shit, far too pretentious & long winded for me). Here I managed to self find a Sanderling & Red Kite, two huge bonuses for any inland county year-lister!

Sanderling, LOUND, March 31st. 

On the 1st April I added Little Gull at Attenborough and on the 2nd Knot & a very welcome Black-throated Diver were ticked off (The BTD being my fourth in Notts!). From here on-in, the year ticks came thick & fast. Excluding the obvious common summer migrants, other highlights during the month included  (remember this is Notts!) Slav Grebe, Jack Snipe, TURTLE DOVE, Common Scoter, Ring Ouzel, Black Tern, Bittern, both Godwits, Whimbrel, Lesser Scaup, Lesser 'Pecker, Wood Warbler, Wood Sand & Greenshank (some pics below).

BTD (Mike Hill)

 I finished April having added 42 new bird and with my total on 158 I was feeling pretty chuffed & confident that, with the usually expected classic month of May in front of me I was on course to smash the Notts year-list record...
Of course, I was overally optimistic because May was a complete & utter bag of wank - I added just 8 new birds but a fair few of them were proper inland quality (Grey Plover, Whinchat, Dunlin, Barnacle Goose, Marsh Harrier, Turnstone, Sandwich Tern & Scaup). Unfortunately I dipped Temmincks Stint, Little Stint, Great White Egret & Spoonbill. Finishing May on 166, my passion for this challenge was beginning to diminish.

Then, to cut a long & tedious story short, over the next three months I only added six more birds (Spot' Fly', LEO, Nightjar, Woodcock, Quail & HB - 4 in June, 2 in July, NONE in August!).
So, here we are at the end of August, My Notts year list currently stands at 172. I very much doubt now that I'll hit 190, never mind 200 especially with me being in eastern Europe for ten days in mid-September.

As I write, I haven't twitched a bird outside of Notts since late April 2013 (Rock Thrush, Spurn). This Notts list had seduced & manipulated me. Too scared to leave the county in case an horrendous needed year tick rocked up. Too nervous to travel too far for fear of missing 'it'. County year-listing is a nasty game but certainly worthwhile and I have everything crossed for a very rewarding autumn; however, in recent days, a dark cloud has been rebuilding inside my head, filling my thoughts & dreams with memories of what has gone& days that are yet to pass... a cloud in the shape of UK Twitching...