Saxon Mill Birding

 As of tomorrow, I will have been conducting weekly surveys of the Saxon Mill since 2004. That's 22 years! Longer than most prison sentences, and I have no intention of stopping yet. The turn of the year is a time to look back at what I have seen over the year and what it means in the context of larger changes.

So, let's start with some basic information. Over the last 12 months, I made 49 survey visits to the site and conducted my standard figure-of-8 surveys along the river and fields. Each visit lasted on average 80 minutes.

That's a total of 55.79 hours across the year spent birdwatching on my patch, a full 2.32 days of my life this year. In that time, I recorded 2065 individual birds of 49 different species.

The Saxon Mill is a site that just keeps giving, and I added two more species to the site list this year. The first was the identification of a Stock Dove during a survey, although I suspect they have been present in the past and were just dismissed as a pigeon. The second species to be added was a Yellow Wagtail, a lifer for me. I was lucky with this one; this species, along with Gadwall, Shoveller and Bar-tailed Godwit, were present on flooded land adjacent to my patch. I try to be rigorous in my scientific approach. Although these species, never before recorded on my patch, were about 100-200m from the site, they were outside my established visual envelope. They could not be counted! Luckily, the Yellow Wagtail popped over the river into the cornfield for a happy tick.

Now that I have aggregated and inputed the data for the year, what can I tell you about the species and conditions?

On the whole, the year was on average cooler than 2024 but still part of a trend of warmer years since 2019. The hottest day was in June at 25 °C and the coldest in January at 5.1 °C. This warmer weather, especially towards the end of the year, led to fewer winter visitors, such as Teal, Fieldfare and Redwing.

Compared to 2024 Crows, Long-tailed Tits, Mallard, Robins, Siskin and Swallows all increased in abundance, whilst Black-headed Gulls, Woodpigeon and Jackdaws were a lot less abundant.

Species List