James Dee Birding

2025 was probably my second best birding year in the Western Palearctic, after 2019 when I toured 28 European countries in my camper van, covering a wide variety of habitats from the  Arctic to Greece and Scotland to Andalusia.  Marsh Owl Retrospection of 2025 However, on a personal note, it's been tough.  This year both my late father's siblings passed away, then in Autumn I received the news that a very dear friend, travel buddy in South America and Europe, and ex-girlfriend, had also died at the young age of 40.  In addition to the ongoing failing health of my last family member, it was a really shitty year.    Birding serves to distract from these harsh realities to some extent. I n May, when I came across the very rare Eastern Bonelli's Warbler in Kent, on a day that should have been one of celebration, I felt no joy in it at all.  It was an anti-climax.  The twitchy bush bashing that followed was unsavoury. I've never been big on twitching,...

2019-2020 European Campervan Tour Between March 2019 and July 2020, I travelled Europe in a camper van, on a birding trip visiting 23 countries along the way.   I got caught up in lockdown in Spain in 2020, and was confined to a studio flat in Benahavis for several months, therefore missing the last leg of the trip - a trip up the East coast of Spain during peak Spring migration. I managed to see 398 bird species during this time, getting over 360 of those on the "van list". In early Spring 2025, I made the missed Spanish East Coast trip on the way back from Morocco. Here are the four links to the poorly written trip report of that journey. Part One    Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland Part Two   Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland,  Part Three   Czechia, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Germany, England, Wales, Scotland. Part Four    France, Spain, UK and Systematic List (t...

Discovery of  Eastern Bonelli's Warbler  at Dungeness, 25th May 2025 During one of my regular patrols/ censuses of the Dungeness Bird Observatory Recording Area, (at around 0940), I was alerted to an unusual song at the southern end of the DBO "trapping area".  At a distance, I first thought it might just be an odd sounding Lesser Whitethroat, but as I got closer the more it reminded me more of Bonelli's or even a Wood Warbler.   Although, at first, it remained hidden from view, the bird continued to sing at regular intervals, allowing me to track it along the outskirts of a tree line.  I began recording the song and tried (through the intermittent phone signal), to send it to DBO assistant warden Jacob Spinks to get his input from internet searches.  Finally, after 5-10 minutes I glimpsed the bird and recognised it as a Bonelli's type.   It showed for about a minute whilst exploring some of the less foliated branches, and that's when I manag...