Tuesday 31st December - Another year ends

A quiet end to this year from a birding point of view with the last week or so being principally around home with family and friends with the exception of a couple of muddy walks around the area. On Boxing Day, towards Furnace Pond with highlights being a large flock of finches in the big arable field, which is currently been left with a clover cover-crop, 200+ Chaffinches, 150 Linnets, 6+ Greenfinch and at least 2 Brambling, otherwise 14 Redwing and 3 Marsh Tit, Treecreeper and Nuthatch the only other obvious birds in the quiet woodland. Another surprise at home last night when I went outside quite late to close the chickens coop, there was a Little Owl calling continuously for 5 minutes from somewhere in the gulley. A mega-rare bird a home with only one previous sighting back in 2013.

The year has been busy. My final bird list was a massive 1,322 Species and the majority of these were in the first 6 months with trips to the Philippines, Columbia, Portugal and Alaska and really was a magnificent highlight. The second half of the year was all in the UK with a few days at Portland Bill and Spurn and a week on the Scillies. It was probably more than I thought would be enjoyed and perhaps more than I would expect from future years, but lets see what next year holds. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!

Friday 13th December - Light in the gloom

 Following successive winter storms, they seem to be barrelling through at 6 or 7 day intervals, we have had a couple of days of calm weather albeit very murky where the day never seems to get properly light.

Last week a Black Down visit with Paul B was almost a complete blank with 2 Dartford Warblers, 2 Stonechat and 2 Goldcrest but otherwise not a bird in sight, so we tried the Furnace pond afrea where at least a flock of c150 Linnet provided some interest with 3 Bullfinch probably the highlight and unusually for nearer home a Stonechat was behind the candle factory.

The birds at home have been enlightened by a Hawfinch that I've now seen on 3 different days. Never close, it flies so quickly, alighting briefly at the top of one of the trees either in the garden or around the field, then dropping somewhere to feed. Such a colourful finch with an unfeasibly large steel blue bill a real bonus to have on the garden list for the year.

An increase in other birds feeding in the garden include up to 18 Stock Doves, a few Pheasant, 10+ Jackdaws, 10+Blackbirds larger numbers of Blue and Great Tits, 2 Coal Tits , a sporadic Long-tailed Tit family of 8 birds and  a very occasional Marsh Tit. The finches feeding in the Alders have been as high as 20 Goldfinch and 30 Siskin, although the Siskin flock seems very infrequent to the area and Chaffinches have increased to 6. At least 3 Great Spotted Woodpeckers and 2 Nuthatches are fairly regular, but the Redwing all seem to have dispersed and no Brambling yet.

On Thursday I went to Selsey as I hadn't been for a while. A decent number of species with the highlight being my only Red-necked Grebe for the year with also 3 Great-Northern Divers, 15+ Red-throated Diver, 1 Velvet Scoter, 1 Slavonian Grebe, 2 Sandwich Tern, 5 Shags and a number of auks all of the identifiable ones being Razorbills.

A visit to a very cold Church Norton had us scanning through the very large Brent Goose flock that was in the field behind the car park as a Black Brant (branta bernicla nigricans)had been seen a couple of days ago, there was no sign of this vagrant sub-species but the noisy flock of c2000 birds did have 2 Pale-bellied versions (branta bernicla hrota). the field also had a covey of Red-legged Partridge and a single Redwing and Fieldfare flew over. The harbour was just receding from high tide with a number of the commoner waders species visible Grey Plover, Dunlin, Knot with 2 Bar-tailed Godwit and 30 Pintail being the best with a very distant flock of c400 Golden Plover at the other end of the harbour in flight.

Hawfinch

Hawfinch

Red Kite at home

Red-throated Divers

Great Northern Diver

Some Dunlin in the harbour

Brent Geese

Monday 1st December - Overdue catch-up

Since the Seaford Wheatear, there's been very little to report on the birding front. The early part of the month still had a few more birds moving locally with the 16th the most notable when a Little Egret flew over the house (one sighting every couple of years) when there was also a Fieldfare, Mistle Thrush and a flock of 15 Redpoll.

A trip to the South Downs above Burpham with Mr Bowley failed to give us the hoped for Hen Harrier. In fact we seem to choose a morning where there was very little bird activity with only a couple of Red Kites and a single Buzzard, but before writing off the morning we we saved by a nice flock of 18 Corn Bunting. A good sight in Sussex these days. 

Whilst there was limited interest at home it was improved by single sightings of a female-type Blackcap on berries on the 19th, a flyover Hawfinch on the 21st and the best garden bird of all, a brief Kingfisher in the pond on the 26th.

The next day I went to see Hannah in Nottingham and had a couple of hours before she finished work so stopped at the Attenborough Nature Reserve, a series of gravel pits next to the River Trent. Amongst the common wildfowl species were a few Goldeneye and over 20 Goosander. A calling Water Rail and Cetti's Warbler with a large flock of c120 Lapwing were highlights amongst the 47 species notched up in a couple of hours walk around the site before dusk.

Can't really see it but it's snowing

The garden pond is in it's overgrown Winter transition

Pied Wagtail

Still surprised to get a brief visit from a Kingfisher

Kingfisher

Sunset at Attenborough Nature Reserve