In a typical year, around 160 species of bird are seen at Paxton Pits, though many of these are passage migrants which stay for only a day or even an hour. April and May are usually the peak months at Paxton, with 125 species in just four weeks. Seeing 100 species in a day has been an ambition of several local birdwatchers for some years.

Laurence Rose, a long time Little Paxton resident, first suggested that it was possible, but moved away before he was able to demonstrate the fact. During 2003 and early 2004, several local birders tallied over 90 species while birdwatching at the Pits, but it was clear that topping 100 would not only require putting in the time, but would also require a great deal of luck. On 23rd April 2004, Jamie Wells set a new record of 94 species in a single day, but that wasn’t the end of the matter for that spring…

On 2nd May, Martin Davis, Julian Hughes and Jamie Wells had what is arguably the most remarkable single day ever at the Pits, seeing or hearing 107 species (as a benchmark, the Cambridgeshire day record is 130 and neighbouring Bedfordshire is 111).

As well as seeing almost all of the breeding species - except for marsh tit, coal tit and all of the owls - they saw a remarkable number of passage birds. Among the highlights were 12 wader species (including turnstone, bar-tailed godwit, whimbrel and ruff), 11 ducks (including garganey, red-crested pochard, and late-staying pochard and goldeneye), 6 raptors (including osprey and marsh harrier), little gull, redstart, spotted flycatcher, whinchat, and most surprising of all, a little tern (only the 19th record for Paxton).

We genuinely wonder whether this can be topped, but look forward to someone having a go...