I expect the birding highlight of my NL trip will be one of the first pelagic trips off the coast! A few of us have been organizing this for the past week or two so I'm super excited and can't wait to see and photograph what's out there!!! On the plate will be many seabirds (Shearwaters being the main focus, but Jaegers, Petrels, Skuas and anything else that we might turn up) as well as whales (should get some up close looks at Fin Whales) and Dolphins! And if we're super lucky we might find a Leatherback Turtle.
Of course I'll be doing as much seabirding as I can fit in at Cape Spear and a drive down the Southern Shore for shorebirding is a necessicity!
I'll be sure to post about those trips :)
And then I'm off to Denmark for 4 months - I've set myself some goals for the 4 months, I'm not sure how realistic they are but it'll be fun to compare how I do in the end with what I write here.
So here goes - a list of my hoped for lists:
Total species (including non-lifers): 153
Lifers: 102
(I started with 150 & 100 but decided to add a few on for good measure - and besides, nice round numbers are boring).
I think these numbers are achievable - I don't want to set goals too high for myself because realistically I am going there to study Engineering - not just birds! And I'll be lenient with myself: those numbers apply to all of Europe - not just Denmark!
Specific species that I hope to see:
Smew
Common-ringed Plover
European Golden Plover
Avocet
Spotted Redshank
Greenshank
Temminck's Stint
Little Stint
Bar-tailed Godwit
Curlew Sandpiper
Broad-billed Sandpiper
Curlew
Ruff
Eurasian Woodcock
Snipe
Jack Snipe
Eagle OwlBlack Woodpecker
any Wagtail species (preferably all of them! :p)
Dipper
Long-tailed Tit
Bearded Reedling (aka Bearded Tit!)
Bluethroat
yeah, so mostly shorebirds on my wishlist - but some other ones that caught my eye as well.
I'm mostly excited to finally get out there and see all these birds (even the common ones) and see all the places I've been reading about and of course meet many many new people!
And I should mention that I'm pretty excited for my courses at University - mostly medical engineering orientated :)
