2024's Birding

At the start of last year, I shared a blog post of my birding highlights from 2023, a year that stood out as my best yet. I recorded 21 more species than the year before, including 36 species I had never seen previously. I noted that this was likely due to two main factors: dedicating more time to exploring local patches and taking a few trips to new destinations. Looking back on 2024, it’s clear that the latter underscores just how much global bird diversity there is to offer.
 
Across 2024, I saw 359 species, almost doubling the number I saw the previous year and adding a whopping 161 lifers. Over the past few years, I haven’t travelled internationally all that much, but in 2024 I had the opportunity to visit Italy, Switzerland, France, Greece, Canada and the US (as well as visiting Scilly in the spring and autumn alongside my usual summer trip). These trips, particularly to north-east America, were the driving force behind my bird numbers. The dramatic increase in my bird life list highlights the importance of evolutionary history and species divergence in shaping global avian diversity. Travelling across the Atlantic to North America, for example, introduced me to species that have evolved independently from those in Europe due to millions of years of geographic separation. Each region has its unique assemblage of birds, shaped by distinct habitats, climates and evolutionary paths, which makes exploring new areas such a rewarding experience for birders.
 
It was hard to whittle down all my birding experience from this year into a Top 10, but I have done my best based on the initial excitement I had in the moment. It’s striking just how much travel has influenced this list – while last year’s highlights were all from the UK, this year half of my Top 10 occurred abroad.
 
Top 10 2024 bird moments:

1. A black kite drifted across Tresco on 24th April during an early morning visit to some dried up floods, mobbed by gulls, and shortly followed by a red kite and a female marsh harrier - all within 30 minutes. A remarkable trio of raptors I’d never seen on Scilly before.
2. I briefly caught glimpse of an unknown bird which seemed a mix of thrush, nuthatch and wagtail on 23rd September at Presque Isle State Park, Erie, Pennsylvania. On consulting my National Geographic bird guide, I identified it as a northern waterthrush - one of my favourite lifers during my travels in north-east America.
3. On a walk along Buzza Hill, St Mary’s, Isles of Scilly, on the 27th October I caught sight of a bird I’m only used to seeing in the spring – a lesser whitethroat. I managed some photos and pinned down a few characteristics that classed it as an eastern-form of the species, circulating the news on the Scilly Birding WhatsApp group. It’s easy to get swept away with the many other birders finding rare birds at this time of year on the islands, but this was self-found and really made me feel I was contributing to the birding community.
4. In a Gerald Durrell-esque afternoon on the 23rd August, I watched from the balcony of a holiday apartment as a few eastern olivaceous warblers hopped between the trees in an olive grove in Paxos near Corfu.
5. On 23rd April, a male ring ouzel on the north end of Tresco caught my attention with its ‘chacking’ call, before suddenly appearing at the foot of the ruined King Charles Castle.
6. Watching the black skimmers tracing the water’s surface at sunrise on Cape May Beach on 9th October was a real highlight of my North American trip. Despite their size and unusual bills, they were very elegant in their tight flock, and contrasted the hundreds of royal terns streaming through the beach in the opposite direction.
7. During my first birding walk of the North American trip, I heard a loud rattle from one of the ponds on the Toronto Islands on 16th September. It was a belted kingfisher, even brighter in colour and much larger in size compared to the kingfishers I’m used to in the UK, and was the start of the many more 'tropical' birds I would see over the next month.
8. Twitching a pair of serins on 24th October was a truly Scillonian birding experience. Among tens of other birdwatchers with their binoculars, scopes and huge camera lenses, we waited for over an hour, scanning the various finches that flitted up and down in an unceremonious pumpkin field behind a fire station. Finally, we were able to pick out a flash of yellow and the serins posed on a dead sunflower for a little while for us all to admire.
9. Finding a little owl snoozing unnoticed in Peckham Rye on 21st June was slightly surreal, as people passed by on their lunch break, oblivious to the bird.
10. During my first ever time skiing, it was obvious that the mountains around Cervinia were pretty desolate of bird life, apart from the ever squeaking alpine choughs. But during lunch on 22nd January, a flock of white-winged snowfinches flitted down to a table, much as sparrows do at picnic benches in the UK. It was quite odd seeing a sign of birdlife amid the miles and miles of unbroken mountains and snow.