Some First Patch Forays....

Pennyghael, Mull – Bryan Rains

    Doing the patchwork challenge adds a bit more interest to the local birding

    and hopefully I can dig out the odd rarity here and there. The patch is just a

    stretch of road from the house but it covers the area in the photo above. Mull

    is certainly under-watched and most of the rares tend to hit the other islands

    but it does turn up the odd surprise now and again.

    The annual count is a marathon and not a sprint so I started the year the easy

    way by picking up a Barn Owl at 01:30! An odd mix of birds through the rest

    of the day were, in order of seeing, Chaffinch, Raven, Blackbird, Robin, Blue

    Tit, Hen Harrier, Hooded Crow, Fieldfare, Mistle Thrush, Kestrel, Golden

    Eagle, Redwing and a Tawny Owl at 22:30. So, 14 species on the first day

    and 16 species on the second gave a reasonable tally of 30. I never expected

    to get something out of the ordinary so soon but on Jan 3^rd I went to check the

    sea for any divers and noticed something small and black close to shore. The

    black dot disappeared, could it have been a bit of seaweed? It soon came back

    up and revealed itself as a Little Auk! It’s the first one I have seen on the patch

    and the first on Mull for me. What a great start to the year. 

Quoyangry, Orkney- Paul Higson

Three main targets set for today, and I reckoned by concentrating

my efforts on them a lot of other species would be found - perhaps.

Jack Snipe - have bounced them off small pools just above the high

tide line on a number of occasions in the past. With over seven

miles of stumbly rocky shoreline to cover I may be in with a chance.

Blue Tit - one has been seen on and off in The Hope (St Margarets

 Hope) recently - much more off than on . . . .

Purple Sandpiper - never seen one on the patch, but with all the

rocky shore and a boulder spit where all the waders in Widewall

Bay roost at high tide, should be in with a chance - shouldn't I ?.

Waiting for the first inklings of dawn at 08:00 hrs. In position for

Woodcock returning to roost from their nocturnal feeding forays.

Unfortunately this isn't Africa, where it gets light at a set time,

and then gets dark at a set time.

Woodcock "dawn" on the 31st Dec was 08:15 here, on the 1st Jan

09:20 . . . no sign at all - maybe still at the Hogmanay party ?

Trudged out to Knockhall Point in order to start my long and

laborious trek along the shoreline, hoping for a Jack Snipe.

Fifty yards in - RESULT !!!  One sprang from no more than three

feet in front of me and away towards Burray - the stripes on its

back gleaming like freshly applied gold leaf in the early morning

sun. 

On to The Hope - Blue Tit beckons. All the gardens had been

surveyed and mapped for active bird feeders in the previous week

(sad, I admit) and all are checked religiously throughout the day –

no sign of Mr Caeruleus at all. However I did find a couple of gardens

that may well produce something

later in the year - maybe a Garden Warbler . . .

Toying with the idea of putting a   WANTED - BLUE TIT   poster

in all the shop windows, and now in the midst of a massive

personal ethical debate on whether I should be attempting to

tape lure him/her ( ie will anyone find out ??). . .  are there any

patchwork rules on tape luring ???

Off to Widewall Bay - a site I have seriously under-watched in the

past, but not this year.

Got settled in a nice sheltered spot, giving scope views of the wader

roosts and across the bay. Shoveler was a bird I was glad to find,

and then a drake and two duck Pintail flew in and landed in front

of me - Bonus bird, really expected to have had to put a lot more

work in for this one, and what a cracking bird it is in the late

winter light.

I continued scanning through the waders on the rocky spit –

hundreds of Curlew and lots of Lapwing, Golden Plover, Knot

and Bar-tailed Godwits etc. After an hour I was still trying to

find a Ringed Plover when a movement caught my eye, re-focus

the scope, and there it was, my first ever Purple Sandpiper

on the patch - result !!

So, the day ended with 60 species on the patch and 71 points

scored.

I have found some little sites/vantage points etc that I didn't know

existed and am really looking forward to the patchwork year.

Liam Curson, patch Cuckmere Haven to Splash Point

my first day of the year was a pretty good one- the gull flock at Cuckmere Haven contained an absolute stonker of an adult Caspian Gull, plus a possible 3rd-winter that I only saw briefly before it disappeared among the masses of Lesser Black-backs. I also managed to see a flock of 16 Barnacle Geese, a pretty decent bird for sussex, that had been hanging about here for a while. What made it all the more impressie was that I saw them flying out to sea, never to return! Since the Casp has not since reappeared either, I was very, very glad I made the effort to get out on New Year’s Day! I managed 48 species on the day, while my next two visits were sadly of very little note, only adding four species. To give you an idea of their ‘quality’, one was Woodpigeon and another was Moorhen!

Jan 1st kicks off in Stornoway - Tristan ap Rheinallt

Although there were showers around this morning, I decided to stick with my plan to use the car as little as possible for patchwork, so I set off on foot to make a start on my year list. There was a nasty northwesterly blowing and it was bloody cold, but I didn’t let this put me off. 

My first stop to scan the estuary produced a second-winter Iceland Gull. It seemed right that this Stornoway speciality should give me my first opportunity to score multiple points for a species, and it was only when filling in the spreadsheet afterwards that I discovered that my second species for the day/year, Hooded Crow, also gave me two points. Not that I’m complaining, of course. Some way farther on I spotted a couple of Pinkfeet among the Greylags, but as I was standing watching them the mother of all squalls arrived from nowhere and within minutes I was soaked to the skin, waterproofs notwithstanding. So it was back home at a trot for second breakfast and then out again, in the car this time. 

Back at the estuary I saw most of the usual ducks and waders, and then a trudge across a birdless saltmarsh brought me to Broad Bay, where I was able to add useful species like Great Northern Diver, Slavonian Grebe, Common Scoter, Eider and Long-tailed Duck; I even got two points for a Shag. The stream that follows the edge of the airport brought the only real surprise of the day: a female Pintail in with a flock of Teal and Mallard. I don’t remember recording this species in the patch before and it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s the only one I see this year. 

Then it was down to the harbour, where I picked up a group of ten Black-throated Divers and a distant Gannet way out to sea. I finished the afternoon in Stornoway Castle Grounds, which was (or seemed to be) devoid of birds. I was about to give up and go home for a well-deserved cup of coffee when I heard a Chaffinch, my 50^th bird and 60^th ‘species point’ of the day. Unfortunately, I reckon there’s only about another 25 species that are more or less guaranteed over the next couple of months, but on the other hand there’s always the possibility of a big influx of gulls that could bring in something interesting. Here’s hoping...  

Jan 1st, Hinderclay, Andrew Goodall

January 1^st Hinderclay and the Little Ouse Fens.

Considering recent days the weather was fantastic with a light breeze and clear blue skies.

Recording began at dawn with bird table visitors and a few fly overs recorded.  The usual’s included Blackbird, Collared Dove, Jackdaw, Robin, Dunnock and Starling.  Greenfinch and Chaffinch soon joined the queue, followed by House Sparrow and Blue Tit.

We set off to walk down to the fen, a mosaic of small patches of land, actively managed by a community group called ‘The Little Ouse Headwaters Project’ and including:

Betty's Fen

Blo'Norton Fen

Broomscot Common

The Frith

Blo'Norton Little Fen

Hinderclay Fen

The Lows

Parkers Piece & Bleyswycks Bank

Scarfe Meadows

Webbs Fen

They can be found adjacent to the villages of Hinderclay, Thelnetham, Blo Norton and Garboldisham in Suffolk.  Walking across the fields we flushed a few wintering Skylark and a flock of 21 Linnet and 4 Yellowhammer.  One species that is not too common on the patch is Mute Swan so I was pleased to see two birds fly over.

At the end of Hinderclay Fen is a small slurry lagoon, which has held wintering Green Sandpiper but not today, just Moorhen and Wren.  Another less common species was a fly over Common Buzzard as we walked towards Blo Norton Fen and on Webbs Fen a Little Egret was working its way through waterside vegetation.

The River Little Ouse was in flood making several paths impossible to walk along even in wellies.

There were just two Mallard on Webbs Fen and a Jay calling from nearby willow scrub.  On the return walk back home I had the bird of the day. A Red Kite flew low over the field occasionally twisting and catching the sunlight. It looked stunning. Sadly only two points I t was worth 22 but I don’t set the rules!