Today I submitted my final results for the Bigby Greenbirding challenge.
Just filling in the results spreadsheet turned out to be a challenge in its own right. I find the "international" bird names very confusing. For instance, it took me a while to work out whether the British species of magpie (Pica pica) is known internationally as the black-billed magpie or the Eurasian magpie (it's the latter, I think).
Despite a few taxonomic blunders, I eventually arrived at a total of 154 species. This is one species less than my original total. For some reason, I had added crested tit to the list - as I didn't venture north of Edinburgh in 2008, that was definitely wishful thinking!
My list fell by the wayside a little, as I was having a crisis on one of my September trips as to what was actual legal... I caught a train to Brid, but then got a lift to a reserve while I was there for part of the the trip, and then got a train back but a lift back from the station!
I'll have to see what I can salvage from it and send my list in...
Posted by: Pete | Thursday, 08 January 2009 at 09:18 PM