Sunday January 17

This post contains too much birding terminology according to my chief critic (Lyn), so I have been told (encouraged) to clear up all of the bits which made her say "what the hell does this mean?" Explanations are in brackets.

A grey morning with snow falling at first and a very light south-easterly breeze. Pretty promising conditions. I arrived early and, scanning south from Netherstead, I picked up a medium sized bird which suddenly accelerated before disappearing to the west. Its jizz (general impression/appearance) suggested Merlin, but did I get enough on it?

Dave arrived to find me battling with my conscience, very tempted to tick it. At this point the waters muddied still further as I noticed an undoubted adult Peregrine perched on the masts. Could it have been that? The Peregrine flew to a more distant mast while I allowed my conscience to win, and let the possible Merlin go.

Peregrine

After counting 98 Linnets on the wires at the south end, we headed north for the pool. The main pool was largely ice-free, but also lacked birds. However, Dave noticed a different duck among a party of Mallard on one of the smaller pools, and quickly confirmed it was a female Wigeon. The second year-tick of the day, and I had almost forgotten the trauma of throwing away a probable Merlin. As soon as you give up on these birds they progress in your mind's eye from possible to probable. By tonight I'll be certain I am denying myself a definite Merlin!

Sleeping female Wigeon

The pool field also contained a male Stonechat, a Meadow Pipit, and at least five Snipe. Three Teal flew towards the Flash field where we counted a total of 39 Teal, 79 Greylag Geese, and five Canada Geese.

On the return circuit we decided to walk through Stapenhill Wood. This gave us a Treecreeper and a few Fieldfares and Song Thrushes. Back at the cars I suggested we have another look at the south end. On the way down there was an explosion of sound as at least 800 corvids took to the sky, the majority being Jackdaws, the rest mostly Rooks. While I tried to see the cause of this eruption, Dave was grilling Redpolls in the hedgerow, (he was looking at them closely, not cooking them!) and muttering about a pale one. It flew as I was setting my scope up, and we could see nothing in the remainder but Lessers. There were a lot though. Dave counted 57, while I observed that there were only two or three Linnets with them. When they flew we thought there were even more than that, and a "photo count" shows 63 little dots in flight, so I'll say 60 plus a handful of Linnets. Either way this is another Morton Bagot record Redpoll count.

Looking at the birds in the crop I found a noticeably grey headed one, which we decided was quite interesting but not a definite Mealy. Some large Gulls flew over, allowing the day's Herring Gull count to reach 14, much better than any count from the whole of last year.

So an interesting morning, pointing to plenty of reasons for future scanning of the Redpoll flock and the chance that there could be a Merlin about.