And so to 2014!

Happy New Year to everyone and a sincere wish that your birding in 2014 will be fulfilling and exciting!

Back in situ , back in harness and back to Blogging!!

Today was always going to be difficult in that promises had been made against that times many repeated old line, " Well, give me a ring on New Year's Day", and so it proved to be. Thankfully, the weather wasn't all that kind, with the best part being at the beginning of the day preceding the wind rising and showers appearing!

So a busy day of sorts, but one that also provided an opportunity to prepare for better things to come. Besides sorting out a new approach for recording details within the BuBo programme I also got myself registered ( I think! ) within the Patchwork Challenge scheme. Take a look at Patchwork Challenge 2014

Basically you submit details of the species seen within your favourite local birdwatching patch on a monthly basis, each particular species earns points and you end up with your name in lights or needing to try harder!!! More complicated than that, of course, but it provides an opportunity to make birdwatching fun and is a motivating factor too.  The size of your chosen area is limited to 3 km squares in extent and the whole idea links to having somewhere nearby to home where you can grab a period of time on a regular basis and hopefully ensure you're not missing much that's going on.

At some point soon I'm going to go around my selected patch ( so named SW Islay ) and take a few photographs of the various mini habitats/sites within it and set out details on the Blog.  And this being the day of resolutions, I also promise to declare the scores that I tot up throughout the year ( foolish boy!).