My ‘Foot it’ area: Sheffield from t’middle out

by Martin

Be careful what you say! It’s taken off. Just have a look how many folk are up for it.

The ‘Foot It’ challenge has plenty of us birding a little differently this January. Exercise and exploring are the reasons why. I think Mark Reeder’s effort is setting up the blog as a vehicle for ‘foot it’ is inspired. Like Rob in Shetland, I can’t figure out Google maps and circle drawing-so I did it the old way. For campaign planning ; ) I have limited myself to a radius created by the spine of a Sheffield Bird Report stretched out from my house on an OS Explorer series map of the area- about 3.25 miles.

For inspiration I read up on old records in my ‘recording area’. Bingo, I had completely forgotten about the Richards Pipit I saw 9 years ago within the boundaries of my big yellow circle. It was found by Ashley Fisher in mid January 2003 while out walking his dog. (photo by Pete Wragg)

For dreamers: some of the stuff found near Sheffield City Centre in the past was a revelation to me: e.g. Purple Sandpiper on the River Don, Ferruginous Duck up from the Wednesday Football ground and Black-throated Thrush in a City Centre park. My roughly calculated, probably overly- optimistic target for birding by foot in Janury 2013 is  75 species.

You are very welcome if you want to join in. Give it a go! All the info is here.