Tuesday January 15

An afternoon visit to the doctor gave me the chance to make a rare dusk visit to the patch. I arrived at Church Farm shortly before sunset, and walked/skidded carefully across the icy road before making a beeline for the flash.

I hardly ever come at this late hour in winter so I had various Owls and other crepuscular species on my mental shopping list. As I approached the flash I could see that it was occupied by a swan, but somehow it never looked as though it was going to be a good one, and indeed it proved to be a Mute Swan. It is still unusual to see this species away from the pool, and  it was a year-tick so I'm not complaining. The Teal numbers have risen to 70, but there was only one Lapwing present. A flock of 70 had earlier been seen over Redditch from our living room window.

The Mute Swan

The walk back to the road produced four Red-legged Partridges, a calling Goldcrest, about 30 winter thrushes (mainly Redwings), and 330 Jackdaws heading to roost. Back at the road I stood and scanned in vain until I was finally ready to admit defeat. Not before a second year-tick though, as two vocal Canada Geese could just be seen as they flew into the flash.

My final bird, a Tawny Owl, hooted as I changed my footwear back at the car. The two slightly underwhelming additions to my year-list brought the total to 65 (67 points).