Wednesday 31 January 2018

Obs January round-up

My Obs year list reached 83 on the last day of January, a little down on 2016 and 17 which were 86 and 87 respectively. It's been slim pickings at times but has had it's highlights in particular a nice early White-billed Diver. Today we had the record highest ever count of White fronts go north, a tough bird to catch up with and its our second skein of the month. The White wingers are in the bag along with Red-necked Grebe
Normally i have to wait till the autumn for Redwings and Fieldfare but this year all the Thrushes are ticked except Ringo.
So what did i see last January that i didn't this year...well it's a long list with some top birds
Great White Egret, Snow Bunting, Merlin, Long-tailed Duck, Scaup and Whooper Swan to name a few.
Stoney was in the house today and called my first Pintail of the year
One thing i can guarantee i will be back as often as possible, i ended last year on 182 so that's my main target
The video of today's White-fronted Geese is distant but we were able to get decent scope views, of interest are the wind turbine bases which thankfully ended up heading north...phew
Sorry could not get it to load so here's one from earlier in the month