Friday January 8

A bright frosty morning. I was a little late getting going, but as the state of the minor roads to the patch could be described as wet with icy patches, it's probably just as well.

I expected today to involve the mopping up of easy year-ticks, but it turned out to be better than that. I chose to walk from Netherstead along the road through the hamlet as most of the birds I "needed" were woodland species.

Eventually I heard a Nuthatch, and a Bullfinch, and saw a few Long-tailed Tits and a Goldcrest. As I said, mopping up the easy stuff. A peculiar looking tit searched for food in the conifers at Greenlands.

I eventually worked out that it was a Coal Tit exhibiting evidence of either albinism or leucism, its mantle and crown being randomly covered in whitish feathers.

I turned down the footpath from the road and at the bottom of the hill met Stephen Coffey. He is employed by the Heart of England Forest charity who own most of the patch. I'm not sure what his job title is, so I'll have a guess at Conservation Officer Head Forester (thanks Sue). Anyway, we had a very convivial chat during which he mentioned he had flushed a lot of Snipe from the pool field whilst checking out a report of duck decoys on the pool. (These were actually at the flash which does not come under their remit).

After we parted company I observed that the pool field now contained the male Stonechat and nothing else, while the flash was partially frozen but hosted 33 Teal and a single visible Snipe. I also added another year-tick as a Siskin flew over calling.

I strolled back until I reached the ridge field, where I flushed several partridges which I couldn't confirm as definite Red-legs. A shoot was taking place towards Studley, so I thought I would back track to see if I could find them again.

In the event I could not relocate them, but instead had great views of two adult Common Gulls which flew languidly south. Always a tricky species to record here. Unfortunately my camera was in my bag, and so by the time I had got it out and switched on, they had disappeared behind the hedge. I continued to the end of said hedge, and then started back along the other side with partridges still in mind. Suddenly, a partridge sized bird got up with a Snipe-like squawk. I realised immediately it was a Woodcock, and had reasonable views as it lumbered off. No chance of a photo, but too good a bird for a simple line of prose, so I jotted down a quick (very bad) sketch, and worked it up into something nicer when I got home.

Woodcock

To put the record into context, my last Woodcocks on the patch were in 2010, and only one of those was within the current patch boundaries. It is likely that these birds do occur more regularly, as Will the gamekeeper was telling me he had flushed two in October 2015. I wonder whether today's bird's presence was explained by disturbance from the nearby shoot. Perhaps it was the one that got away.

One last year-tick was waiting for me. Stephen had seen one earlier, and as I headed along the track back to Netherstead I flushed a Green Woodpecker, my 60th species this year.

Definitely one of my better days.