Happy New Year! Apologies for my lack of posts recently and my new year’s resolution is to up my game! In my defence it really has been a poor year, even with the addition of three year ticks in December – Little Grebe, Nuthatch(!) and these two sparring Peregrines…
I only managed a feeble 97 bird species, one of the poorest annual totals I have had in the village. It wasn’t only the range of species either but also the numbers. Summer visitors, in particular, were depressingly scarce, no Sedge or Reed Warblers seen, only one singing Lesser Whitethroat and very low numbers of hirundines. We did add one new species to the parish list though, Great White Egret.
So hopefully better things to come in 2023…
After a dreary few days, today was glorious. To kick off my
year list I headed down to the floods at Langlands.
Around 200 gulls were on here, 90% were Black-headed but I
also added Common, Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gulls. Around forty Curlew
were feeding in the far meadow along with a dozen Lapwing. Other than Mallard
the only ducks were two Goosander and a nice flock of 45 Teal…
Up to six Treecreeper were in the shelter belt along with
Bullfinch and three Reed Buntings. Also in the fields here were three hares and
no less than eight Roe Deer.
The river itself was running high and fast so held little
but I did tick off a single Wigeon and Little Grebe as well as Kingfisher and
all three common raptors. A nice loafing flock of Curlew was by the railway
bridge…
I tallied up 182 birds before they were flushed by a dog
walker…
These are almost certainly in addition to the Langlands birds so the highest combined total for a number of years.
Also here was this puffball of a Goldcrest. It was so intent
on foraging that it actually landed on my boot at one point…
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