19th January

My first walk of the year along the river. Despite the frost it was very quiet with no waders and only four Goosander, Grey Wagtail and a distant flying flock of 70 Golden Plover to add to the year list.

In the fields there have been good numbers of Fieldfares in recent days, they seem to move to ground feeding after Christmas even if there are good numbers of berries still in the hedgerows.

At Sedgefield the geese are still present in good numbers but the Barnacle was the only non-Greylag present but they were joined now by groups of Curlew. Eventually these all flew off and coalesced into a single group in the Bottom Fields, I tallied up a decent count of 106 birds…

12th January

I managed to get a couple of (poor) photos of the Bean Geese this week and can see they are actually Tundra Beans. They are the more likely in Yorkshire but really looked large and long-necked in the field. Still a great Ainderby find…

A large flock of Greylags was in the same field again today…

Searching through I didn’t see any Beans but did find a single Canada (must be a genuinely wild bird!) and only the second record of Barnacle goose for the parish…  

5th January

It’s been a shamefully long time since I last posted but it has been a reflection of an incredibly quiet winter so far. Hence only a feeble year total of 97 species for 2019, the lowest since I started keeping a record of the birds seen in the parish. Amongst the ‘lowlights’, no Red-legged Partridge, no Wheatear or Siskin, only a single Little Owl etc. etc. Here’s to a more productive 2020!

Today was the first chance to properly get out. The main target was a large flock of Greylags which have taken up temporary residence in the fields below Sedgefield House. They aren’t easy to view but I tallied up over 400 birds. As I scanned them I spotted a couple of different looking birds, Taiga Bean Geese! A new species for the parish. A brilliant start to the new year…

Elsewhere it was fairly quiet but I did see two Jays, around 50 Lapwing, a Great Black-backed Gull (a species I missed last year) and good numbers of Fieldfare….