Branwen's Big Year 2024 | Episode 5

[@user-bu9nb8wr6e]

A lovely reserve and a loved film.

[@BranwenVlogs]

Thank you for watching :)

[@tonycritcher3419]

Hi Branwen, Thank you for yet another beautiful video. Stunning footage as always and interesting pieces to camera. Rather difficult for me to choose a favourite bird from your East to West adventures. Dartford Warbler and Little Tern have to be up there! I still haven't managed to get to Minsmere since November, when the Scrape was more like a lake! I have a week booked not far from Minsmere in October, but still hoping to get up there before then. As for the cheeky Grey Seal climbing aboard the dinghy, what can I say? I loved the Swallowtail butterfly, I have still to see one! Your Big Year is certainly growing and will have since May, then there is the Autumn Migration fast approaching! I wish you all well with your quest and have my fingers crossed for 200+!

[@branwenmunn9417]

Thank you so much Tony! I always love a Dartford, and the one we saw was a great payoff after a long walk around Dunwich without seeing one until we were literally two minutes from the car park again! Typical. Although we have several more trips away planned in the Cairngorms, north of England (autumn) and Skye (midwinter) I'm not sure we'll get to 200... We'll see! Sadly my work has been really busy (I'm a freelancer so usually take whatever comes along when it does) which has probably prevented me dashing away on emergency twitch trips! I've speculated some species we might see on some of those trips away and that would bring us up to about 175, which leaves me wondering where another 25 species might come from 🤣 But you never know... Keep everything crossed!

[@tonycritcher3419]

@@branwenmunn9417 I know the feeling, being a self employed gardener, I have to take the work while the weather is favourable. Hence my breaks in the winter months. 175 species and being so busy is a great target and I will be keeping everything crossed that you exceed that and have great fun in your quest. So glad that your Dartford Warbler finally decided to show. Lovely birds, as of course they all are in their own way. I even enjoy the even less colourful blackcap and gadwall drake. So easily pleased when I do get out for some birding. I do get some nice surprises whilst gardening though. Keep up the good work and of course, Happy Birding!

[@musician1000]

At last! Thank you, I really enjoyed that. My favourite bird of the trip was definitely your mum.

[@BranwenVlogs]

@@musician1000 Haha, thank you! She is so chuffed to hear that! 😂

[@VictorPotter-zr4qp]

Just stumbled across your video while I was looking for my usual photography vids, it certainly made a pleasant change to find someone so knowledgeable about bird, enjoyed it immensely 👌👍

[@BranwenVlogs]

Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed :) I'm trying to document every month this year, but have fallen behind a little...

[@BorisPerc]

I love birds on my ranch not so fair from my home i build them feeder and even behind my house i put some feeder for birds. My favorite here is Sokol (falcon) bird of prey we have here 4 diferente species blue one, brown one and two are smaller, one of the fastest birds on this planet.

[@jamesfreeman526]

Hi Branwen, I noticed in the intro I saw that you were using some kind of app to log all your sightings, what's it called?

[@BranwenVlogs]

Hi James, it's the BTO app, called BirdTrack. It's great! You start a list at which point it auto-detects your location (or you can over-ride it if you like), and you just start adding birds. Super-intuitive. You can add lots of detail (like count of a species, specific sexes, any other notes etc), or just keep it very simple. You have to make a BTO account to use it, but that's actually awesome as you can login on the BTO website and view all your birding data in all kinds of ways, which has been really useful for keeping track of a Big Year. Plus, all the data contributes in some small way to the BTO's work of tracking species populations etc. It was a great app to discover just before this year started!