The Virkie 10k: a Shetland GREEN year list

R. RIDDINGTON

In birding, the concept of the year list – the number of species seen in a calendar year, in a defined area – has been around for a long time. Its popularity waxes and wanes but the climate crisis (and to some extent the COVID-19 pandemic) has meant that local-patch and ‘green’ listing have become increasingly popular. So much so that ‘full-fat’ year listing, gobbling up thousands of miles on the road, with plane journeys and boat trips to remote islands, is in danger of fading away or becoming the pursuit of dinosaurs - at least at a national scale.

On my old patch of Gibraltar Point, in Lincolnshire, Skeg stalwarts Rob Watson and Nige Lound have been green-listing for years, and I’ve always taken an interest in their totals (typically close to 200 in a reasonable year). I first kept a green list in Siracusa, during a six-week stay in the early spring of 2019; partly because getting around Sicilian towns is often easier on a bike, partly because we hired a car only occasionally. Then, in March 2020, the first COVID-19 lockdown sparked more effort at local patching on foot and by bike in Shetland. I got quite into it during the spring of 2020 but work and family commitments away from Shetland intervened in the autumn, my effort fell away and my 2020 green year list was an unremarkable 165.

Since I knew that I was likely to be in Shetland for most of the spring and autumn of 2022, I contemplated a more concerted effort. Fullblown year listing has always worried me a bit. I’ve witnessed two friends – Paul Harvey in 2001 and 2013 and Phil Harris in 2021 – trying to break the Shetland year list record, in each case successfully. The effort, cost and carbon involved plus the disruption to family and indeed birding life seemed, frankly, crazy. Who wants to drive all the way to Unst for a Tree Sparrow on a spring morning when there could be anything lurking undiscovered in the south mainland? But surely green-listing would be more sensible. The effort would be high but the cost low, the carbon very low and the effect on family life low (or at least low-ish? - best ask my wife Agnes). As for the impact on my birding, well, in theory surely I might find just as much as I would otherwise have done? In the end, I decided to do what most year-listers do, whether or not they admit it: make a start and review progress as the year unfolded. Even if I abandoned I’d have plenty of miles in my legs, which would be all to the good.

For the attempt, I opted to give myself a limited patch. I first became aware of the 10k concept (birding within a radius of 10 km of a given