Meta tags:

Headings (most frequently used words):

blog, and, blogs, bradders, 2014, 2013, on, birding, sunday, 23, february, friday, 17, january, tuesday, 31, december, david, suzanne, bradnum, about, us, follow, me, twitter, archive, topics, ve, waffled, other, birdy, bubo, listing, followers, search, this, all, linked, networked, statcounter, white, billed, diver, sandside, bay, baby, rarity, distribution, in, pictures, before,

Text of the page (most frequently used words):
the (79), and (42), for (18), this (17), all (15), with (15), birding (15), blog (12), from (12), that (11), there (11), have (11), was (11), been (11), but (9), share (9), birds (8), #february (7), december (7), just (7), are (7), around (6), photos (6), august (6), january (6), more (6), where (6), suzanne (5), about (5), bird (5), other (5), two (5), south (5), march (5), april (5), may (5), june (5), july (5), september (5), october (5), billed (5), then (5), year (5), records (5), some (5), lifers (5), few (5), those (5), norfolk (4), november (4), 2013 (4), diver (4), dbradnum (4), time (4), while (4), see (4), out (4), species (4), can (4), megas (4), here (4), right (4), instance (4), great (4), one (4), down (4), far (4), follow (3), blogs (3), show (3), 2012 (3), day (3), away (3), site (3), not (3), wales (3), scotland (3), good (3), shetland (3), white (3), 2014 (3), david (3), has (3), now (3), home (3), what (3), labels (3), pinterest (3), facebook (3), blogthis (3), email (3), posted (3), better (3), already (3), data (3), they (3), excellent (3), seen (3), you (3), coast (3), below (3), clearly (3), had (3), well (3), next (3), chart (3), list (3), anything (3), jessica (3), days (3), way (3), must (3), bradders (3), couple (3), class (2), crafting (2), birder (2), scilly (2), africa (2), canada (2), suffolk (2), twitching (2), sandside (2), bay (2), spending (2), holiday (2), she (2), happy (2), get (2), bradnum (2), posts (2), comments (2), new (2), since (2), easier (2), draw (2), perhaps (2), rarer (2), should (2), much (2), done (2), yellow (2), weeks (2), best (2), though (2), certainly (2), above (2), its (2), circles (2), big (2), turquoise (2), north (2), shown (2), detail (2), quality (2), only (2), near (2), illustrates (2), showing (2), 1992 (2), left (2), else (2), east (2), distribution (2), how (2), early (2), back (2), start (2), which (2), british (2), years (2), say (2), following (2), didn (2), hoped (2), nine (2), story (2), lots (2), amazing (2), bit (2), end (2), enough (2), pretty (2), rarity (2), tuesday (2), our (2), little (2), meeting (2), still (2), highlights (2), usual (2), were (2), feeding (2), very (2), any (2), surface (2), skip (2), statcounter, networked, search, linked, followers, bubo, listing, westpalbirder, dominic, mitchell, fibo, warden, diary, utter, twites, wader, world, monkey, business, mostly, dave, wildlife, illustration, jack, ashton, booth, tales, swallow, farm, musings, fenland, smallholding, nomadbirder, swopticsphoto, peter, moore, drunkbirder, valleybirding, birdingextremadura, wanstead, bucktonbirder, rotherhithe, beyond, connor, holme, josh, quite, frontiers, menziebirding, pewit, graham, catley, photography, hawkys, northern, rustic, birdy, turkey, tick, lesvos, bulgaria, morocco, finland, norway, canary, islands, malawi, pub, brazil, scillies, cornwall, essex, gambia, dragonflies, texas, kent, butterflies, lifer, london, like, topics, waffled, 2009, 2010, 2011, archive, twitter, obsessed, tolerant, jonathan, lethbridge, sums, always, loved, outdoors, enjoys, odd, twitch, generally, let, him, gets, her, own, subscribe, atom, older, lists, maybe, resolution, somewhere, conclusion, hope, goes, value, keeping, over, period, patterns, insight, software, comes, along, thinking, need, keep, electronically, ones, full, counts, submit, bto, interesting, important, conclusions, across, observers, atlas, could, easily, earth, exactly, 100, browed, warblers, red, backed, shrikes, pec, sands, most, stuff, peak, scarcities, rarities, prizes, guessing, cley, sheer, number, anywhere, country, rainham, punching, weight, hand, side, hunting, grounds, highlighted, larger, minsmere, lowestoft, winterton, sheringham, dominated, seawatching, principally, local, slice, pie, course, simply, littered, looking, shortage, lot, reveals, tendency, further, area, grew, yarmouth, canvasback, pied, grebe, west, navy, relatively, recent, obviously, plenty, region, notable, date, again, everything, anglia, tiny, handful, bonuses, elsewhere, wide, huge, change, started, teenager, national, pic, between, 230, 2003, when, graduated, university, 310, less, scatter, predictable, bias, towards, hotspots, emerge, dungeness, lead, three, including, tarty, coloured, melodious, warbler, inland, chew, valley, lake, give, sharp, tailed, sand, franklin, gull, portland, eastern, bonelli, collared, fly, put, alongside, week, unexpected, addition, alcid, locations, compare, previous, five, log, basically, unusual, scarce, migrants, bigger, disproportionately, reckon, sites, multiple, goodies, uwchmynydd, peninsula, abbs, head, slight, surprise, southwest, missing, even, mass, rash, bubbles, says, badly, think, validates, them, close, also, colour, key, tart, snipe, kilnsea, compensated, ridiculously, view, first, tells, typical, review, instead, spent, hour, playing, visualisation, tools, latest, version, excel, picture, speaks, thousand, words, going, long, pictures, before, getting, know, beautiful, girl, people, daddy, unable, identify, walk, postman, keeps, bringing, presents, eventful, hugs, cuddles, however, reading, provides, convenient, numerous, consistently, themed, requests, send, made, appearance, morning, last, something, whirlwind, truly, suffice, fair, priorities, sleeping, anyone, disinterested, probably, delete, their, bookmarks, least, month, eighteen, baby, friday, comment, happier, note, rest, short, trip, took, stack, included, lesser, scaup, king, eider, funny, coot, selection, speyside, scottish, coastal, specialities, suggest, shallow, water, rocky, dabbling, nosing, seaweed, manner, shoveler, never, saw, dive, nor, bring, food, thought, weird, late, afternoon, surely, same, found, floating, dead, sad, inshore, consequence, being, either, ill, starving, apparently, inability, feed, hastened, loon, american, readers, thurso, 30m, brixham, might, birders, present, cold, sunshine, gave, fantastic, hours, views, arctic, ever, lucky, dad, visited, friends, weather, actually, than, high, sunday, sidebar, main,

Text of the page (random words):
bradders birding blog skip to main skip to sidebar bradders birding blog sunday 23 february 2014 white billed diver sandside bay a couple of weeks back i was lucky enough to get a few days birding in scotland with my dad while suzanne and jessica visited friends from canada while they were in wales the weather was actually much better than down south and the quality of the birds was pretty high one of the highlights was this white billed diver or yellow billed loon for any american readers right up on the far north coast near thurso it was showing down to about 20 or 30m as i d hoped the brixham bird might have been in december and with only a couple of other birders present in the cold sunshine gave us a fantastic couple of hours certainly far and away the best views of this arctic species i ve ever had as the photos suggest the bird was feeding in very shallow water around the rocky coast dabbling and nosing around in the seaweed in the manner of a shoveler we never saw it dive nor bring any food up to the surface at the time we just thought this was a bit weird but by late afternoon the following day what must surely have been the same bird was found floating on the surface dead very sad perhaps the inshore feeding was a consequence of the diver already being either ill or starving and its apparently inability to feed there just hastened the end on a happier note the rest of our short trip took in a stack of other great birds rarity highlights included lesser scaup king eider and some funny coot or other while the usual selection of speyside and scottish coastal specialities were excellent as usual posted by dbradnum at 11 55 1 comment email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels scotland friday 17 january 2014 bradders baby blog jessica bradnum made an appearance early on tuesday morning and so the last few days have been something of a whirlwind in a truly amazing way suffice to say that birding is a fair way down my list of priorities just now below sleeping for instance so anyone disinterested in anything but birds should probably delete the blog from their bookmarks for at least eighteen years a month or two however for those that are still reading the blog provides a convenient way of meeting numerous consistently themed requests can you send us some photos where are the photos but there must be more photos must have photos and so on so here s a start it s been an eventful few days there have been lots of hugs and cuddles the postman keeps bringing us all presents we ve been out for a little walk to see some birds one of which daddy is still unable to identify we ve been meeting people and above all else we ve been getting to know our beautiful little girl posted by dbradnum at 10 01 2 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels jessica tuesday 31 december 2013 rarity distribution in pictures 2013 and before this is far from a typical end of year review but there are enough of those out there already instead i ve spent an hour or two playing around with some new data visualisation tools in the latest version of excel and my birding records from the year if a picture speaks a thousand words then this is going to be pretty long first up where have i seen anything good this year the chart below tells the story on the left we have my nine british lifers i think this validates the story that there s been lots of amazing birds but few of them close to home you can also see from the colour key that one of the nine was a bit of a tart the great snipe at kilnsea but compensated for by the ridiculously good view on the right we have all the other species that i log all records for basically anything unusual scarce migrants and better the bigger circles disproportionately big i reckon are sites with multiple goodies the uwchmynydd peninsula in wales or st abbs head for instance one slight surprise from all this is that i ve not been down to the far southwest at all in 2013 i ve been missing out and even though we didn t have the mass of megas we d hoped for on shetland the rash of bubbles says we didn t do badly next how do those lifers locations compare to those in the previous five years say those are shown in the following chart there s less scatter here with a predictable bias towards the south east and a few hotspots emerge dungeness is in the lead with three including the tarty turquoise coloured melodious warbler and for an inland site chew valley lake has done well to give me two sharp tailed sand and franklin s gull portland has two more megas eastern bonelli s and collared fly as well to put alongside this week s unexpected alcid addition but that wide distribution is a huge change to how my birding started as a teenager in the early 90 s no national twitching back then as the next pic illustrates this is all lifers between 1992 at the start of which i had a british list of around 230 and 2003 when i graduated from university with the list on around 310 clearly it was all about east anglia with just a tiny handful of holiday bonuses elsewhere obviously i ve had plenty of excellent birding up there since then as well so the next chart illustrates that region in more detail showing all notable records from 1992 to date again with lifers on the left and everything else on the right looking at the lifers there s clearly no shortage of quality in that lot this clearly reveals a tendency to only go for rarer birds further away from the area where i grew up near great yarmouth for instance canvasback and pied billed grebe in west norfolk and the navy megas in south suffolk are all relatively recent on the right hand side you can see some happy hunting grounds highlighted with larger circles for instance minsmere lowestoft winterton and sheringham dominated by seawatching records principally local birds in a big turquoise slice of the pie and of course the north norfolk coast is simply littered with great birds shown below in more detail no prizes for guessing where cley is here the best site for sheer number of species for me anywhere in the country though rainham is certainly punching above its weight here and i could easily go on where on earth have i seen exactly 100 yellow browed warblers 26 red backed shrikes or 21 pec sands where have i seen most stuff on shetland or scilly what are the peak weeks of the year for scarcities rarities and megas but in conclusion for now i hope this just goes to show the value in keeping records over a period of time since it s easier and easier to draw out patterns and insight as better software comes along i m already thinking that i need to keep more data electronically perhaps all species not just the rarer ones with full counts and then i should submit it all to the bto so they can draw much more interesting and important conclusions from the data across all observers as they ve done with the excellent bird atlas maybe there s a new year s resolution in there somewhere posted by dbradnum at 20 13 no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels lists older posts home subscribe to posts atom david and suzanne bradnum in south africa august 2012 about us david the obsessed and suzanne the tolerant jonathan lethbridge that just about sums it up david has always loved birding and spending time outdoors suzanne enjoys the odd twitch and birding holiday now and then but generally she s happy to let him get on with it while spending time crafting at home see what she gets up to on her own blog follow me on twitter follow dbradnum blog archive 2014 2 february 1 white billed diver sandside bay january 1 2013 40 december 2 october 6 september 5 august 2 july 5 june 4 may 1 april 6 march 2 february 5 january 2 2012 58 december 6 november 2 october 8 september 4 august 1 july 2 june 5 may 5 april 8 march 7 february 3 january 7 2011 68 december 3 november 6 october 6 september 11 august 7 july 4 june 5 may 6 april 8 march 4 february 4 january 4 2010 85 december 2 november 3 october 15 september 15 august 9 july 5 june 6 may 6 april 11 march 3 february 3 january 7 2009 73 december 7 november 3 october 4 september 3 august 8 july 9 june 10 may 9 april 9 march 9 february 2 topics i ve waffled on twitching 45 photos i like 36 shetland 35 london 31 norfolk 28 lifer 24 butterflies 18 kent 16 suffolk 13 texas 12 dragonflies 12 gambia 11 essex 10 scillies and cornwall 10 brazil 9 good pub 8 malawi 8 canary islands 7 finland and norway 7 canada 6 morocco 6 scotland 5 south africa 4 bulgaria 4 lesvos 3 wales 3 two tick day 2 turkey 1 other birdy blogs northern rustic hawkys blog pewit graham catley s photography menziebirding birding frontiers not quite scilly josh s blog connor s birding site birding around holme and nw norfolk rotherhithe beyond bucktonbirder wanstead birder birdingextremadura valleybirding birding the day away the drunkbirder peter moore s birding blog swopticsphoto nomadbirder tales from swallow farm musings from a fenland birder s smallholding bird and wildlife illustration by jack ashton booth dave mo birding monkey business mostly about bi wader world 2012 the utter twites crafting with suzanne fibo warden s diary westpalbirder the blog of dominic mitchell show 10 show all bubo listing followers search this and all linked blogs networked blogs follow this blog statcounter class class