Yorkshire Bird Race 2019

The January field activity this year was once again taking part in the annual Michael Clegg Yorkshire Bird Race. This year’s beneficiary is Ryedale Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre run by Jean Thorpe.

Four teams from York took part and it was a record year for species and fund raising:

York Upstarts (Tim Jones, Chris Gomersall, Jack Ashton-Booth and Oliver Metcalf) racked up a new record 108 species during the course of the day (and quite a lot of the night!). They were the top team in Yorkshire.
A brilliant day with lots of luck to make sure we managed to see most of the potential species on offer around the area.

[Ex-] Chairman’s Pick (Peter Watson, Rob and Jane Chapman, Duncan Bye and Neil Hildreth) had our best ever race total, clocking up 91 species – Nuthatch and Barn Owl late on taking us over our previous best of 89 (recorded on no less than three previous occasions!). They were runners up in Yorkshire.

Nevermind the Woodcocks scored 88. The team comprising Emanuela Buizza, Rich Baines, Paul Brook and Jono Leadley had a fun day but a lot of bad luck, missing some fairly common species. 

Paul Doherty, Jonathan Begbie, Jim Reid and Alan Swain went round the York SE53 10km square and recorded 72 species. The highlight of the day was prolonged views of a juvenile Peregrine.

Not only did the York Upstarts smash the record for the York area, they also set up a fund raising page for sponsorship. At the time of writing, this has raised over £2,250 for Jean and is still available at https://www.gofundme.com/f/yorkshire-bird-race-2020-fundraiser?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet.

A collection of sponsorship from teams not using that page and further donations was held at the YOC meeting on 7th January, raising over £220.