The birds of Essex that I've missed

Having spent my entire 57 years on this planet living in Essex you'd think I'd have racked up a good Essex list, well you'd be wrong.

In my youth I was very much into birds and the great outdoors but didn't have the money or the circle of friends that shared the passion to enable me to be anything more than very very local but I was extremely lucky to live in a house that backed onto the river Roding and Epping Forest was a short walk from the house too so these formed my haunts when not doing what my mates preferred to do. Funnily enough none of them ever wanted to do what I would rather have been doing.

My list stands at 266

The total to the best of my knowledge is 390  all time

Some will have been seen prior to my birth year of 1963 and quite a few will have been added since.

In fact the Essex list has grown by 91 species in my life time.

The first list to share on the blog is the Essex birds that I've not seen not only have I not seen these birds in Essex but I've not seen them in Britain.

There's some real crackers in the above list and then there's my bogey bird The Tawny Pipit!

All have been seen in Essex.

I'll take a look at the rarities next and see what I've missed over the years.

to be continued......................................