The quick rules are that birds must be seen in Bedfordshire between 00:00 on 25th Decemeber and 24:00 on 31st December. You have seven days to find as many species as possible.
For a write-up on the first ten years of the Christmas Birdhunt then please see the 2011 county bird report. A write up of the first 20 years was then published in the 2021 bird report.
So what will be found this year? We will only know if as many people as possible take part and report what they find. You can spend as little or as much time as you wish looking for birds on this the only rules are that the sightings must be in Bedfordshire and within the 7 day period from Christmas Day to the end of the year.
Email daily sightings to one of the following:
or add to the appropriate Bedfordshire Birding Community WhatsApp Group. If you are not registered and would liketo join click here:
or just text Andy Banthorpe on: 07885 159380
Please also add all sightings to BirdTrack as usual so the bird recorder check all the records.
BirdTrack is the Club’s preferred method for submitting records. It’s easy to set up, quick to use, and generates excellent reports for reviewing your data and keeping lists up to date.
Starting on Christmas day the regularly updated statistics will be available here:
Happy hunting……
2025 Christmas Bird Hunt
115 Species found.
The quick rules are that birds must be seen in Bedfordshire between 00:00 on 25/12/2025 and 24:00 on 31/12/2025. You have seven days to find as many species as possible.
In 2023 we found 107 species and in 2024 we found 111 species giving an average over the 22 years of 111.73. The average over the last 10 years is 110.3.
We have a core list of 87 species that have been found in all the years we have run this but others only turn up occasionally or maybe in half the years.
157 species have been seen over the 21 years and in 2021 we added American Wigeon to this list. In past years we lumped Caspian and Yellow-legged Gulls but these have now been split out for all years using the old records.
2024 Christmas Bird Hunt
111 species found
The quick rules are that birds must be seen in Bedfordshire between 00:00 on 25/12/2024 and 24:00 on 31/12/2024. You have seven days to find as many species as possible.
In 2022 we found 106 species and in 2023 we found 107 species giving an average over the 22 years of 111.73. The average over the last 10 years is 110.3.
We have a core list of 87 species that have been found in all the years we have run this but others only turn up occasionally or maybe in half the years.
157 species have been seen over the 21 years and in 2021 we added American Wigeon to this list. In past years we lumped Caspian and Yellow-legged Gulls but these have now been split out for all years using the old records.
For a write-up on the first ten years of the Christmas Birdhunt then please see the 2011 county bird report. A write up of the first 20 years was then published in the 2021 bird report.
