This month’s Birdwatch is a cracker.
How do you identify redpolls? A good question – and there are some good answers here.
Josh Jones makes the case that we should look even more carefully at gulls because there are some potential additions to the British list that might well tuen up – fortune favours the prepared mind.
There is a review of 2020 and whether anybody saw any good birds despite the constraints of lockdowns – we did.
Charlie Moores takes the final page and rails, snipes and grouses against the use of the term gamebird – as if the purpose of the evolution of these birds were to be shot at! It’s a good point and a well-written piece. Charlie says in our hobby we should duck the use of gamebird otherwise shooters will crow about it. And he does use gamebird not game bird I am relieved to see.
There is topical comment on the influx of Whitefronts from Russia – there are still 30 of them on my local patch of Stanwick Lakes.
The letters page is a good read too.
For some reason, this edition of my favourite birding magazine pleased me even more than most. Not sure why, it’s always great in my opinion.
My column addresses the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch as a fun thing to do and also as a political act.
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How do you identify redpolls
Generally you see them being run in The Morning Star.
I’m looking for a repeat of the ‘mealy on niger feeder’ highlight of a decade or so ago in my BGB this year. Appalling photo was duly provided to local recorder. Have had some surprisingly good birds in (or over) my tiny patch of urban Oxford, but that one still stands out. Fingers crossed…