22nd January 2023

A week of extremes. The start of the week was still dominated by the floods…

and waterbirds on Langlands including up to 40 Wigeon…

And still impressive numbers of Lapwing…

But then the big freeze and a virtual complete clear out of waterbirds. To be replaced by some good numbers of thrushes driven into the village itself. Our Siberian crab apple tree was a particular draw…

The peak count in our little village garden was 33 Blackbirds (32 of which were adult males), two Mistle Thrush, one Redwing and six Fieldfare…

A fantastic sight and sound. (Despite this I still haven’t seen a single Song Thrush this year).

It was probably the cold that also brought four Lesser Redpoll into Jim and Sue’s garden, they showed really well just outside the kitchen window…

The river though was the focus this weekend…

and it was quite productive. Snipe were taking advantage of the unfrozen margins and I counted a total of 24 today. Other waders included two Redshank and two Green Sandpipers and a small flock of Golden Plover. My first Little Egret and Grey Wagtails of the year too, but pick of the sightings was a group of three Goldeneye…

I have only seen this species half a dozen times in the parish and always on the river in very cold weather.

8th January 2023

It was the floods which were the focus for me this weekend. Both the Bottom Fields below the village and Langlands had reasonable expanses of water…

Nothing scarce on here but it helped to bolster my year-list. Three Mute swans were on the Bottom Fields yesterday but there were six on here this morning and then joined by this strange necked individual…

Pinkfeet were moving yesterday with one skein of 60 birds east of the village and these ten which flew in over the floods…

A single Tufted Duck was probably the best sighting as they are now less than annual visitors…

On Langlands there were 60 Mallard, two Shelduck, a nice mixed flock of 140 Teal and Wigeon and 50 Curlew…

Yesterday there were some excellent flocks of Lapwing moving over with two flocks totalling over 400 birds…

Finally I had a covey of six Grey Partridge on the edge of the floods and a new record count of ten Roe Deer…

2nd January 2023

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…