My Patching History

 So another stab at blogging. Mainly because I find I often can't say all I would like to in a tweet. Last time I started this it ended up descending into too much moaning, so I PROMISE not to do the same. Not too much anyway 😉

My previous attempt was also much less interesting than it could have been (which would definitely have not been very interesting) but thanks to being proud owner (and incompetent user) of a Canon bridge camera these days I will at least now be able to offer some pictures to break the monotony!

See.

Because this exercise is likely to be dominated by my time patch birding I thought I ought to start with a summary of my patching "career".

I haven't always patched, and when I have it's not necessarily always been at the same place. Many years in the not too distant past I've been consumed by county (Hampshire) year listing (and in the more distant past by twitching further afield), but the past few years it's been patch birding, plus proper trips to more distant (often much more distant) places.

My current haunt, Barton-on-Sea in the SW corner of Hampshire, was also my first real patch, birding here semi-regularly during the the late 90s/2000's. I had tried Keyhaven/Pennington as a patch, but really struggled with the ingrained suppression prevalent amongst other regulars there, and the fact that the only way to get close to being part of the inner set was to join in with this, so I gave up on it.

In the mid 2010's however I was tempted back to Keyhaven again, having been frustrated by the number of single observer sightings I was getting at Barton (its geography isn't really suited to attracting or holding on to stuff, mostly it's fly-overs on vismig that provide the quality), and the impression this must have created. It was here that I really threw myself into patching, birding here to the exclusion anywhere else local, but the more I went the more it was obvious that the same old cliquey problems persisted, and although I found a few things that were seen by others, there were still a fair number of single observer records with the headaches they cause. Add in the fact that the mega-popular site is overrun by selfish idiots (including a fair few of the birders), and it only took the 2020 lockdown to break that habit, and I willingly returned to Barton once we were all allowed out again. I have now come to the very liberating realisation that what others think, what is or isn't accepted, is of no importance. I just enjoy birding, especially birding Barton, and so that's what I get on and do . . .