Middlesex Biggish Year: June Update

 June has just come to an end, and as such we have come to the approximate halfway point of my "Middlesex Biggish Year". I ended up seeing two new species for my year list, putting me at 226, which I think is pretty swell! This beats my total from last year, and becomes the second or third highest year list total in Middlesex history (recorded, anyways), and we're only 6 months in! The one bird I was kind of hoping to find this month was Marsh Wren, and I actually went out to the sewage lagoons on a few occasions to try and find the ones that were sporadically reported, but no luck. I will have to cross my fingers for the fall!

The breakdown:

Code 1: 129 species

Code 2: 60 species

Code 3: 23 species (1 new)

Code 4: 9 species (1 new)

Code 5: 4 species

On June 11th, I saw one of my most sought after breeding species for the year, a Prothonotary Warbler in southeast London. We thought that the habitat looked pretty good, but the next day, it was gone. Who knows how long it had been there before it was reported. 

My other new addition for the month was a code 4. On June 1st, the day right after I had wrote I was giving birding a break for a bit, I got an alert for a Common Tern in south London. I skedaddled right over there, and found that it was actually a Forster's Tern, which was soon joined by a second while I was there. Despite being a bit more expected, it was a new Middlesex species for me, so I was happy anyways! I'm up to three tern species this year in Middlesex, which is pretty nuts. Still time to make it four...or five. 

I'll more than likely not be in Middlesex much over the next couple of months, so I will take this up again in September! The only thing I can think of maybe missing (barring rarities) would be Baird's Sandpiper, just because of how unpredictable they are in the county to begin with. I guess time will tell!