New Year's Day 2013

Hello and welcome to 2013!

My birding year started at about 6.30am this morning when I was woken by a Carrion Crow "cawing" in the garden. This was followed closley by a singing Robin and an alarm calling Blackbird. The following few hours watching the garden added the usual suspects (see list below, numbers 1 - 16) and an unusual record of an over flying Mistle Thrush and a female Bullfinch.

After breakfast I managed to convince the ever-suffering Jayne to have a walk around Linacre where we added a few more "year ticks" to the list (numbers 17 to 32 in the list). Wildfowl numbers were low and there wasn't any sign of any Mandarins or Tufted Ducks! The only exception being the 26 Goosanders (13 males and 13 redheads) that were present on the middle reservoir - my highest ever count and the 2 over-flying Lesser Black-backed Gulls. On the way out we stopped by the main entrance to watch a flock of approximately 50 winter thrushes, which were feeding in the ploughed field. A quick scan show that at least 95% were Redwing, with a few Fieldfare thrown in too. Very nice.

The final part of the day invovled a quick drive across to Screetham Lane near Beeley Moor where we saw 3 more ticks (numbers 33 to 35), the Brambling being the best sighting of the day!

Year List:
1 – Carrion Crow
2 - Robin
3 - Blackbird
4 - Dunnock
5 - Chaffinch
6 - Goldfinch
7 - Greenfinch
8 – House Sparrow
9 – Collared Dove
10 - Magpie
11 - Woodpigeon
12 - Starling
13 – Blue Tit
14 - Bullfinch
15 - Wren
16 – Mistle Thrush
17 – Great Tit
18 - Nuthatch
19 - Mallard
20 - Goosander
21 – Black-headed Gull
22 – Lesser Black-backed Gull
23 – Little Grebe
24 -  Coot
25 - Moorhen
26 – Jackdaw
27 - Redwing
28 – Fieldfare
29 – Great-spotted Woodpecker
30 – Long-tailed Tit
31 – Goldcrest
32 – Grey Wagtail
33 - Pheasant
34 - Rook
35 - Brambling