Paul Matson's Birding Blog: Tuesday 30th December

Tuesday, 30 December 2014

Tuesday 30th December - 2014 What a Year !!

This time last year we were on our way to the airport to leave for South Africa for the start of an incredible year of travel (at least until the end of August). I'd set myself a target of seeing 1,500 species of bird, without a real plan as to where that number came from.

I have seen 1,400 and my list says it is exactly this number (It could go up by a maximum of 2 as I can't quite get my individual trip lists to agree to the total) and nearly 600 of these were new for me. The number itself is largely unimportant, I could have just gone to South America for 2 months and easily seen more species in total, but the quality of birds seen in the places I've visited have been an absolute pleasure.

It makes it difficult to keep highlights short but some of the totals :

23 species of Pheasant and Partridge
20 species of Storks and Ibis
23 species of Heron
80 species of Birds of Prey
17 species of Owl
18 species of Kingfisher
33 species of Woodpecker
7 Pitta's , 10 Bee-eaters, 7 Cranes, 13 Hornbills

I could go on........

The sheer variety and quantity of special birds means that I can't pick one out as my favourite or even do a top 3 - So here are 4 pictures per country I visited this year.

South Africa January 2014
Kynsna Turaco
Southern Black Korhaan
Northern Giant Petrel
White-bellied Korhaan