There are many excellent coastal counties for birding - in fact, most of them are worthy of a visit, but which inland county (i.e. totally land-locked) can lay claim to being (over a period of time) the best inland British county? And how is the best method for maybe measuring this light hearted bit of fun?
Here is my case for why Cambridgeshire may be (is?) the best inland county:
County List: 332 species
County Year List record: 214 species (set by myself in 2003)
Birdrace record: 132 species (set in 2007 by Cambirders - M. Hawkes, J. Leadley, D. Poyser and B. Green)
Highest County Life List: 285 (Bruce Martin) - with 12 listers all over 260 species.
Highest 24 hour site record: 107 (set in 2004 at Paxton Pits)
Highest Garden List: 154 (Richard Porter Perry/Grafham Water)
1st January record: 95 (set in 2002)
Highest site list: not sure on this one, Grafham Water has recorded 253 species since it was created in 1966.
Best Birds:
Black-browed Albatross (1st for Britain), Sooty Shearwater (only British inland record?), Lesser Scaup (4 to date), Surf Scoter (2 records), Little & Ballion's Crake, Little & Great Bustard, Killdeer (2 records), Pacific & American G. Plovers, Sociable Plover, Semipalmated Sandpiper, Red-necked Stint, Least Sandpiper, Broad-billed Sand (2 records), Stilt Sand, Upland Sand, Greater Yellowlegs, 4 skua species, Laughing, Franklin's & Ivory Gull, Roseate Tern, 4 auk species, Blue-cheeked Bee-eater, Short-toed Lark, Alpine Accentor, Thrush Nightingale, Black-throated Thrush, River Warbler, Barred Warbler (1st for Britain), Pallas's & Yellow-b. Wrb, Penduline Tit, Isabelline Shrike, Arctic Redpoll, Rustic & Black-headed Bunting.
Other reasons:
Nationally important numbers of breeding limosa Black-tailed Godwits, Lapwing, Snipe and Redshank. Breeding Spotted Crakes and Marsh Harriers. Large numbers of wintering 'wild' swans. Previous breeding records of Little Gull and Black Tern.
How do others compare?
All the best,
Mark Hawkes
Cambridgeshire is pretty good, isn't it? Could be partly because we're really not that far inland. Could also mention Ruff leks, a superb Nightingale site (Paxton) and some interesting (attempted) breeding records, eg Red-necked grebe.
atb
James
For its size Rutland must take some beating. The numbers don't quite match those that Mark lists for Cambridgeshire but they are still impressive for what is a tiny county. When I have a bit more timeI will look up some figures.
Steve