335 : Tricoloured Heron

Tricoloured Heron - Egretta tricolour

I keep digging out these US armchair ticks. The Daily Bird is I am ashamed to say 5 years old and it is in fact verging on being a weekly bird. The bird rate is catastrophically low so I have declared this the year of catching up with some short sharp bursts of birding required. More planning is required, odd days, hire cars, cameras sneaked on business trips and so on.

It really only took me about an hour to walk down the edge of Golf fairway on the morning before a work conference kicked off to pick up this lovely Heron. These are an "uncommon" bird in the US and restricted to Florida in the Winter and the rest of the Gulf coast. I did notice the "active dashing" for fish described in the Sibley text.

I am off to the UK on a short business trip next week which is then blurring into picking up my son from Dorney Lake where he is rowing. I was wondering what common birds I have not got a picture of yet on the site from the UK. I thought I'd come up with some firm targets and then just see how many I can pick up Friday Afternoon and Saturday morning.

Just a quick review starts to throw up gaps. How about these 3 starting from the back of any book of British Birds - Corn Bunting, Yellowhammer, Linnet. Now that requires some real farmland birding ! I would be very happy to stroll across a corn field and see any of those in the hedgerows - actually probably easier in the Winter or at a bird feeder.

I am setting myself a "hard" target of getting to 400 birds. before I go to Malaysia. It *should* be possible by trawling photos I have right now and then going for it for 24 hours in the UK. The ducks must be easy ?? Corvids, garden birds, gulls, terns in the UK on breeding rafts ? Ok - I am going to see if I can get to 400 by May 31st and then I can have a centenary retro. I think I promised myself  a top 15 for the new retro. That should be a fun thing to do in a hotel room sometime. Got to get to 400 birds. Seeing 65 species in 24 hours in hard enough in the UK - but taking a picture as well is a tall order. It is all doable though. Just a question of planning surely ?

5 years of the Daily Bird - it is owed a 5th birding present - a little number "4".

Tricoloured Heron, Egretta tricolor
Grand Lakes, Florida
November 2015