7th January

My final parish bird list for 2017 was a distinctly feeble 101 species, the loss of wader habitat is probably the main reason so waking yesterday to quite extensive floods in the Bottom Fields I was hopeful of kicking off the new year with one or two goodies.

In the end it was quiet, the only wildfowl were 22 Mallard and half a dozen Greylags. There were reasonable numbers of gulls on the floods with around 200 Black-heads but only half a dozen Herrings and a single Common Gull. There was also a nice, if mobile, flock of Lapwings.

The only other bird of note was a Grey Wagtail on Langlands…

The apple trees by the waterworks have now been virtually stripped of fruit but were still attracting  Fieldfares up to a couple of days ago…

The floods had receded significantly this morning…

But a walk in the Magic Garden turned up Kingfisher, Siskin, my first Treecreepers (two) since last summer…

And half a dozen Goldcrests in a large tit flock…