Just a few hours to go until 2008 - at least just a few hours here to the north of Tokyo (the title of this post is - I think - a rough anglicisation of the countdown to 2008 Japanese-style). I’ve just watched the fireworks going off in Auckland courtesy of the BBC; back in the UK my wonderful partner Jo will soon be contemplating the best way to get our daughter Evie ready for her midday nap; Mike (of this very blog) will just be waking up at home in New York; Corey, who may already be in California, will be either a) still asleep, or b) waiting impatiently for dawn to arise on the 31st so that he can get some last year birds under his belt before he starts his “carbon-free” listing in 2008. It’s quite a big planet all things considered. And I intend to cover as much of it as I can in the coming 365 days…starting with a visit to Choshi, a fishing port and gull hotspot about a 90 minute train ride away.

Assuming my alarm goes off (and it will) in about ten hours time from now I’ll be looking at Vega and Black-tailed Gulls, Harlequin Ducks and Pacific Divers, and perhaps Dusky Thushes and Bull-headed Shrikes, wrapped up against what looks likely to be a biting wind blasting down from northern Japan and Siberia (what chance they’ll bring a Steller’s Sea Eagle with them I wonder?). By the time I get back to the hotel here in Narita I’ll have run out of daylight and Jan 1st - from a birding perspective - will be wrapped up and finished: it’ll be time to get the notes written up, the photos online, and to take a warming nip from a miniature bottle of Drambuie I brought with me for just such an occasion (’be prepared’ eh).

In about 24 hours time year-listers everywhere will be either totting up their first day’s totals or planning their first trip of 2008, new birders will be out and about discovering their first sparrows, geese, tanagers, shorebirds or whatever passes for “locally common” in their area, and a whole army of old-hands will be stepping forth, binoculars round their necks again, happily using birding as a great reason to get outside and walk off the excesses of Christmas. There’s no other day like Jan 1st, when everything is shiny and new again, when it feels worth checking every bird you come across just in case it’s something different, and when even Starlings and House Sparrows are tickable again and are worth a second glance. Optimism and excitement rules the roost. There’ll no doubt be plenty of opportunities to reflect and worry about the health of the planet and the effect on our birds over the next few months, so instead right now may I just wish one and all a peaceful, bird-filled, and exciting year.

5…4…3…2…1…….hooray and cheers!