Yvonne and Ian – January in
Askernish
Why the Patchwork Challenge? Well, I started off the year by declaring
that in 2013 my new year’s resolution would be to bird longer and bird harder.
When I heard about the Patchwork Challenge it fired my imagination and has
given me the incentive to get off my butt, out from behind the computer screen
and get out there.
Ian and I have birded this patch since August 2010 and it’s great
because it’s accessible from home and the 3 sq km includes a variety of habitat
including our garden (and all the gardens in the township), crofts, lochs, golf
course, dunes, beach and shore.
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| Askernish |
I think Ian and I are in probably in competition with each other as much
as anything!
No doubt about it the bird of January (and probably the year!), for us,
has to be the Gyr Falcon that turned up on the 10thJanuary, at least
it hung around long enough for me to get out of the loo, cycle down the road,
see it and for Ian to get some photos. Patch gold!! Full write up and photos in
a previous Patchwork Challenge blog post:-
I can’t really pick out anything else on the patch that I would class as
outstanding or unexpected; there has been a fair smattering of wintering birds,
mainly waders and wildfowl. There was a small flock of 20 Snow Bunt’s hanging
out on the beach and a small flock of between 21 and 24 Greenland White-fronts
regularly on the croft down the road. My patch list for January is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AtRDd-6QA_V8dEdvU2owSUYwTDdtRUtXVTFIRnR6YlE&single=true&gid=0&output=html for
viewing (extracted from my Bird Track data).
I ended the month on 57 spp / 71 points which equates to 53.33% of last
years total. Ian had to leave unexpectedly mid-month and is still down on the
mainland. He ended the month on 53 spp / 74 points – he got a whopping 12
points for finding the Gyr.
Ben - January on Bardsey Island
January
wasn’t too bad on Bardsey this year, considering that it is by far the quietest
month of the year bird-wise. It started off pretty slowly, and by the end of
the 1st I had only managed 42 species!
A
couple of days later I managed a half-decent seawatching session from the
Northern hide, and saw a Mediterranean Gull, 24 Red-throated Divers, a Great
Northern Diver and a few Common Scoters. I can struggle to see these species in
the winter some years, and so it was good to get them down. Unfortunately, the
next day I had to leave the island to go and do three AS level exams! This took
a week-long chunk out of my birding, and so I returned on the 15th somewhat
annoyed at my absence.
Thankfully
the day after returning, a cold spell enveloped most of Wales and parts of the
UK, which meant lots of birds for me!! The days following saw maximum numbers of
thrushes and other passerines reaching 600 Redwings, 100 Fieldfares, 100 Song
Thrushes, 15 Skylarks, a Reed Bunting and 40 Meadow Pipits. Waders also arrived
in pretty good numbers, with 100 Lapwings, 37 Golden Plovers, Grey Plover,
Bar-tailed Godwit, Dunlin, Ringed Plover and 10 Snipe recorded over a couple of
days. 20 Teals and a pair of Wigeons were also good to see during the cold
spell.
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| Thrush flock |
After
the 20th things got a lot quieter; over-wintering island-scarcities such as
Jack Snipe, three Whimbrels and the male Firecrest were all nice to see when
the weather got grim. By the 27th I had reached 69 species- not bad for
January. After this high seas and strong winds enveloped the island (not quite
literally!), and saw the first Gannets moving past at sea in high seas.
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| Firecrest |
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| Whimbrel |
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| Chough, on Bardsey |
So
there is January in a nut shell! The last few days have been alright to begin
February, most notably being a Long-eared Owl (we struggle to record them on
the island some years, even though they used to breed), and two Grey Plovers.
Roll
on the spring!!!
Ian Mills – January at Whitburn
It's been a fairly predictable month on my NE coastal
patch, Whitburn to South Shields, with a moderate return for lots of hours in
the field. As a site which relies heavily on summer/autumn seawatching and migration,
particularly in the autumn when goodies can turn up (remember the South Shields
Eastern Crowned Warbler), I don't expect to be in the leading contenders for
some months yet.Best birds have been self found Iceland Gull and a very
unseasonal Sooty Shearwater with a single Lapland Bunting.
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| Lapland Bunting |
Andy J –
January from Sandy Point
January’s highlight at Sandy Point was
a flyover waxwing on 17th (only my 6th record). The cold
snap also produced woodlark (bringing up the 100 on 21st), ruff and
goldeneye (none of these recorded last year), amongst record numbers of
fieldfare (up to 600). Other notable 2-pointers included red-necked and
black-necked grebes, purple sandpiper, marsh harrier, short-eared owl, little
gull and merlin. Overwintering birds include up to 5 each of Sandwich tern and
jack snipe, three great northern divers, and single black redstart and
firecrest. Month-end total: 102 sp., 126 pts.
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| Black Redstart |
The
Tall Twitcher – January, Ogmore Estuary
As
someone who works in the Highways Sector, this month has had me seeing a fair
amount of work, and unfortunately not a lot of birding.
So far I
have managed just three visits to my patch, but am delighted with the 62 points
accrued so far, especially as it represents almost two thirds of my overall
score in the previous two years.
The
highlight without a doubt must be the Bonaparte's Gull that turned up on the
Ogmore Estuary in my patch on the 5th January, whilst I was unfortunately
away!! Thankfully it has remained and I managed to find it on the 6th amongst
the several hundred of Black-headed Gulls that it was associating with.
Other
highlights must be the Water Pipit that remains on the Ogmore Estuary, and the
pair of Chough that habitats the local cliffs in Southerdown.
So, with
the snow behind us for a little while at least, let's hope that February brings
a few more species, before I find that Mega in March !!!
Richard H describes January in Morton
Bagot
It’s been
a good month in terms of numbers of species. My total of 69 is one more than my
previous best Jan (2011), and I see that in 2010 and 2012 I was only on 62 by
the month end. However, all three years ended up with about the same total, so
I’m not going to get carried away.
In fact,
in terms of highlights it’s been slightly under par. The nearest I’ve come to a
patch tick was a Gadwall on Jan 27, which was the first here since 2010. While
the best bird was probably the Barn Owl on Jan 20, notable partly because they
are just great birds, and partly because I have never seen more than one per
year.
My only
two-pointers were Peregrine (pretty regular here to be honest), and up to six
Jack Snipe on Jan 5 and 6. This latter species is present most years (but I
missed it in 2010 when the site dried out), but until this year has been an
autumn speciality.
Having
slightly maxed out on the regulars, I fear the rest of the winter and the back
end of the year could be a bit of a tick-desert.
You never
know though.
January round-up –
Stornoway
Tristan ap
Rheinallt
As previously reported, the year started quite well in
Stornoway, with an Iceland Gull and an unexpected Pintail on New Year’s Day. In
a typical year, that Iceland Gull would have been the first of several – but
not so in 2013. I saw no more white-winged gulls on my patch during the whole
of January, and there seemed to be very few elsewhere on the island. Also
missing (nearly) were winter thrushes: Redwing just scraped onto my list by
virtue of a single individual that spent about ten seconds in my garden, but that
was it. Even Song Thrushes seemed unaccountably scarce, and Stornoway Castle
Grounds – never the most exciting place at this time of year – were almost a
dead zone in January 2013.
On the plus side, I did manage one or two difficult
species such as Moorhen and Grey Wagtail, together with just about all the
‘two-pointer’ seabirds I could hope for at this time of year. The weather was
pretty good for the most part: not too cold, not too wet, and not too windy.
But we had a big storm on 29th and 30th, with hurricane-force
winds reported from the Butt of Lewis area. The 31st, though, was
sunny and calm so I decided to have a good look round just in case the bad
weather had moved things around a bit. It was good to see a Grey Plover, quite
a scarce bird up here, and I also finally caught up with Kittiwake and
Goldcrest for my list. But the best bird of the day, and
probably the month, flew past my kitchen window as I was preparing lunch.
Although it was distant, I could see that it was very big and moving very slowly.
A Grey Heron? No way! I grabbed my bins and rushed upstairs, where I was able
to enjoy the sight of a rather tatty immature White-tailed Eagle circling over
the Castle Grounds for several minutes before drifting off to the southwest,
with a bunch of gulls in hot pursuit. So that was six points (and a house tick)
to round off the month nicely.
My final tally was 75 species, which for a gull-less
January isn’t too bad. At the start of the year I reckoned I should have about
80 by the end of February, so I’m well on course to meet that target.
Gary White at Trimingham
Apart from seeing everything I would
of expected in the extremely cold conditions I got two patch lifers which after
about 15 years of looking around Trimingham was only down to the patchwork
challenge getting me out when I would normally find something warmer to do
indoors and wait for the spring.
The first bird which was at the start of the easterlies was a Rock Pipit on a day where Fieldfare flocks were coming in off the sea and I saw two Waxwings also, the Rock Pipit was a real highlight.
The second bird was a Long-tailed Duck which I saw on a different day in between hail showers with 4 Common Scoter. This was the first time I had ever seen a Long-tailed Duck on the patch but this year is the first time I have seen a flock of 60+ Common Scoter that seem to be hanging around offshore.
The first bird which was at the start of the easterlies was a Rock Pipit on a day where Fieldfare flocks were coming in off the sea and I saw two Waxwings also, the Rock Pipit was a real highlight.
The second bird was a Long-tailed Duck which I saw on a different day in between hail showers with 4 Common Scoter. This was the first time I had ever seen a Long-tailed Duck on the patch but this year is the first time I have seen a flock of 60+ Common Scoter that seem to be hanging around offshore.
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| Barn Owl |
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