September Targets and Possible Birds

Targets and Birds

My target for September was for 15 new Year ticks. So far I have managed 13 and with 9 days to go that target could be reached. The following lists birds that could possibly occur over the next 9 days in descending probability order. That is I have made a spreadsheet of birds that would be year ticks seen on Fair Isle during September in the last eleven years.

56% chance -

• Barnacle goose
• pectoral sandpiper
• olive-backed pipit

45% chance

• Blyth's reed warbler

last year's Blyth's reed warbler

• buff-breasted sandpiper

36% chance

• Pallas' grasshopper warbler

27% chance

• buff-bellied pipit
• paddyfield warbler
• pallid harrier
• honey buzzard (missed the one seen a few days ago!)

18% chance

• pomarine skua
• melodious warbler
• western subalpine warbler
• American golden plover
• Arctic redpoll
• western bonelli's warbler
• pechora pipit
• red-flanked bluetail
• thrush nightingale

OK let's get to a fantasy level of chance. The following have occurred once in eleven years :-

• magnolia warbler
• river warbler
• eastern olivaceous warbler
• Sabine's gull
• Baird's sandpiper
• White's thrush
• Syke's warbler
• spotted crake (there is one on the island at the moment)
• Swainson's thrush
• Two bar crossbill
• brown flycatcher
• Siberian thrush
• Grey-cheeked thrush
• Woodchat shrike
• Iceland gull (!)
• yellow-breasted bunting and . .
• aquatic warbler

Please note that there are more species that have occurred in October here on Fair Isle.

Also there are a few birds that I should get back on the Mainland; bean goose for instance.

300 is on the way. 305 for a European record? I won't count my chickens just yet but . . . .