How to be a Birder blog 8: A Local Patch

By Stephen Moss, Global Chief Birding Adviser, Netvue

Part 8 of the exclusive ‘How to Be a Birder’ series | Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

In the eighth entry of his exclusive series for Netvue, our Global Chief Birding Adviser STEPHEN MOSS explains why you should get yourself a local patch.

What is a local patch?

I first came across the term ‘local patch’ sometime in the 1980s, when birders began to promote the virtues of having somewhere near your home to watch birds regularly, throughout the year.

The term they used, ‘patch’, referred to a relatively small, self-contained bit of land which you can visit regularly, and where you build up a picture of the resident and visiting birdlife.

A local patch can be virtually anywhere. The heart of the countryside, a coastal marsh, a city park, or even your own backyard – all have their own unique and fascinating birdlife. But when you choose, a site close to your home will always beat one further away, so you can make frequent and regular visits. There’s not much point having a bird-filled patch an hour’s journey away from home, which you can only visit every other weekend.

Some patches will of course be more productive for birds than others, but wherever you choose, there's usually something interesting going on. As the birds come and go, from day-to-day, season-to-season, and eventually year-to-year, you are on hand to witness and record the changes.

My local patches

For me, the idea of getting my own local patch made immediate sense, though at the time, living in urban North London and with a young family and busy job, I didn’t get round to having a patch of my own for almost a decade.

In the early 1990s I moved to a more promising part of south-west London, close to the River Thames and several large parks, and started to look for a suitable place for my first proper local patch.

I’d heard of a local nature reserve along the river called Lonsdale Road Reservoir – nicknamed, because of its unusual shape, ‘the Leg O’Mutton’. Even then I put off checking it out, until one summer’s day in 1994 fate intervened, in the form of my car breaking down on my way to work, right next to the entrance to the reserve.

While waiting for the repair service to arrive I casually walked through the gate and wandered along a narrow, wooded footpath alongside the river – next to the towpath which, once a year, is packed with people cheering the crews of the annual Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. But on this day, no-one else was there, and I discovered a little paradise for birds.

Living nearby for the next three years, I was a regular visitor – on almost three hundred separate occasions – to what soon became ‘my local patch’.

I didn’t see any truly rare or unusual birds during that time, so what kept me so faithful to this one place? Well, for me, I find that the more times I visited, the more I wanted to return. Somehow the very act of getting to know somewhere and its birds in minute detail reinforced the interest I got from each visit.

Looking back, I got almost as much pleasure from the people I met as the birds I saw. As one of them told me, in a backhanded compliment about my regular reports about the patch in my regular newspaper column: “I enjoy your articles; but remember, it’s not just your patch, it’s our patch too!”

Since then, I have had several more local patches. The second was also in West London, another disused reservoir, where I topped the 100-mark for species recorded. I also got a century in my first local patch in Somerset, a rarely-visited nature reserve on the edge of the Avalon Marshes; though to be honest, with a new young family of three small children, for my first few years here my garden was effectively my local patch – and remains important to me to this day.

During the Covid lockdown in spring 2020, strict regulations meant that we were all only allowed to venture a short distance from our home for our one hour’s daily exercise. I soon discovered the unexpected joys of what I later called my ‘micropatch’ – a three mile walk around the area behind my home, where I enjoyed the song of returning migrants, comforting me during that difficult spring.

I visit my current local patch, where three rivers meet on the Somerset coast a short drive from my home, roughly once a week – often on a Saturday morning with two birding companions. Sharing a patch is for me a novelty, but I cannot overstate the importance of enjoying birds with others, especially close friends like mine.

Over the past decade, we have tallied over 150 species here – almost all the commoner birds of my county, plus a few very exciting scarcities such as Sabine’s gull, Leach’s storm-petrel and red-backed shrike. It’s a place I plan to visit regularly for the rest of my life, knowing that there will always be something new and unexpected to enjoy.

Choosing a patch

So how do you choose your own local patch? That of course depends on where you live. If you are in a particularly bird-rich area, for example on the coast or near a bird reserve, you may be spoilt for choice.

In that case, consider finding somewhere less visited by other birders. It’s always better to be a pioneer, so seek out somewhere new. My advice would be to explore the area within a mile or so of your home, travelling on foot or by bicycle. Look for a self-contained, ‘island’ habitat which attracts passing birds, such as a wetland, woodland or park. Even in parks, water – in the form of a pond or lake – will always increase the number and variety of birds you see.

Then make a couple of reconnaissance visits, at different times of the day, and note down what you see – not just which species, but the numbers of birds too. See how long it takes you to cover the area thoroughly: between thirty minutes and an hour is probably the optimum, especially if you’re planning to visit the patch on your way to or from work, or at weekends.

When it comes to patchwork, dedication is important – there’s not much point in only visiting once or twice a month. Regular trips, ideally two or three times a week over a longer period of time, can yield far more than you might imagine. In the late 1990s, I spent three years watching a small disused reservoir by the River Thames in south-west London, where I recorded almost 90 different species. Some keen patch-watchers in top locations have managed well over 200 species, sometimes even more!

Over the years, you might eventually hit the jackpot with a rarity – but these aren’t the main reason for regular patchwork. The most satisfying aspect is the sense that these are ‘your’ birds, with every arrival, departure or newly hatched young bird being witnessed and recorded by you personally. Even common and regular species take on a special significance, especially if they appear in unexpectedly large numbers, at odd times of year, give better views than usual, or are behaving in a particularly interesting way.

Together, the many thousands of regular ‘patchworkers’ in North America and Europe also provide a crucial weapon in the battle to conserve valuable habitats. My old local patch in West London would have disappeared years ago, if it hadn’t been for a dedicated group of people who – when it was threatened with development – campaigned to turn it into a local nature reserve. And that’s true of many other wonderful places, saved for future birders to enjoy!

I hope that I have fuelled your interest and if you don’t already have a local patch of your own, you get one soon!

Keep reading

• How to be a Birder BLOG 1 February 2025 – Starting at Home
• How to be a Birder BLOG 2 March 2025 – Equipment: what you need
• How to be a Birder BLOG 3 April 2025 – Identifying birds by appearance
• How to be a Birder BLOG 4 May 2025 – Identifying birds by sound
• How to be a Birder BLOG 5 September 2025 – Keeping bird notes and a journal
• How to be a Birder BLOG 6 October 2025 – Fieldcraft (part 1)
• How to be a Birder BLOG 7 November 2025 – Fieldcraft (Part 2)