It's December, which means that my pan-species exploits for this year are very much winding down. December is typically a time of limbo and anticipation for me, as I patiently await the end of the year just so I can gleefully begin it all again come New Year's Day. Totally crazy, I know this. You can blame the teenage manic year-listing birder in me for that. Not that I've even attempted a birding Big Year for a very long time now, but the New Year's Day restart is totally engrained in me.
December is the time of year that I start making plans for seeing various target species during the forthcoming year, some plans come to fruition but plenty don't. It's also the time of year that The Ghost and I come up with a few hair-brained schemes which, eventually, are fine-tuned into a Challenge between ourselves. He's been a bit quiet of late, but I'm pleased to say that we did indeed thrash out our 2026 Challenge a few nights back.
It's a two-part challenge this time. The main part of it is a straight up "who can record the most species next year" challenge, with the winner being the one with the highest total. Ghostie suggested that one, seeing as he spent the bulk of this year focussed on one particular group of insects and didn't really find the time to look at much else during his year (finding a colony of Praying Mantises notwithstanding...) Clearly he's planning to be a bit more 'off the leash' during 2026.
The second part is a twist on this theme "who can see the most vertebrate lifers next year". That was my suggestion, seeing as I keep promising myself to go fishing and also to go find a Beaver. The knowledge that Ghostie is also looking at verts should be a good enough prod to spur me into action. I have one 'easy' vert lifer awaiting my attention: White-winged Scoter in Lothian. There are several males kicking around this winter, so this is as good a time as any to finally make the effort and go see them. Plus there's those pesky Orca which, so far, have repeatedly given me the run-around.
I had a quick look at our combined 'verts lists'. The families involved are fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Breaking these down, our respective totals look like this:
Group Ghost Me
Fish 49 72
Amphibians 8 9
Reptiles 7 8
Birds 456 443
Mammals 48 59
Total 568 591
Ghostie is more of a twitcher than I am, which is to say he'll chase a new bird once or maybe twice a year, whereas I generally don't bother at all. I do casually chase birds for my Skye list, but that's all nowadays. I would love to see my fish tally increase quite substantially. I'm not interested in stocked lakes, but river or canal fish are good to count and obviously anything that gets hauled out of the sea is tickable too. I happen to live right next to the sea, so it's about time I made use of this fact by grabbing a rod and reel. Ghostie still needs several relatively easy bat and cetacean species, loads of fish and has one obvious 'tart' bird. Looking back at previous challenges one fact stands out above all others - he always beats me. Will this be the year I break my (sea)duck, or will he whoop me once again?
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| Adder, Alpine Newt and Natterjack Toad - total vert stunners from 2024 |
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| About time I caught myself a Thornback Ray, empty egg cases do not a lifer make! |
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| Red Gurnard - how stunning is that?? Crazy fish, I need more like this in my life |
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