Saturday January 5

I don't know what it is about the turn of the year, but after weeks of going through the motions I'm suddenly keen as mustard again. This was my first full morning on the patch, and of course there were year-ticks a plenty.

The very mild winter, so far, has meant that Goldcrests are easy to find, and in fact I heard the first as I stepped out of my car at Church Farm. I had decided to do a longer circuit in the hope of seeing more birds. I saw four male Bullfinches in this north-east part of the patch after having had very few sightings since last winter.

Bullfinch

I had a cunning plan. I have been deliberately avoiding the marsh recently, and the hope was that I might flush a Jack Snipe. The early indications were good as I soon flushed 15 Common Snipe. Then, in the middle of the marsh, two Jack Snipe got up, a couple of steps later another, and then a fourth from behind me. This was easily my best ever count, but I chose to leave the marsh at that point as I expect Dave to be accompanying me tomorrow, and I am hoping there could be even more.

The flash was rather less impressive, just 14 Teal and 105 Lapwings. A flock of 60 Linnets was circling the set aside field, and a dozen Skylarks were in the air, several singing.

The mild weather is encouraging a lot of birds into song, Robins, a Mistle Thrush, a Song Thrush, and several Great Tits joined the chorus. The south end produced a similar count of Chaffinches as the north, a combined total of at least 105, and with them were 10 Bramblings. The only Lesser Redpolls I saw were two on the feeders at Netherstead, but half a dozen Siskins were also in the area.

My last bird of the day was a Sparrowhawk, and my year list stands at 50 (plus Feral Pigeon) after two visits. There are still some easy ones available for tomorrow, I've seen no large Gulls, amazingly no Geese, and no Herons for example. More worryingly, I haven't seen any Tree Sparrows for over two months. They seemed to be present in good numbers in the lead up to the 2012 breeding season, but I didn't see too many young birds and I'm wondering what effect the wet summer had on chick survival. Hopefully they will reappear later in the winter.